The 275GTS just came back from the painter for some touch ups, so it’s all hands on deck to get this car prepped and ready for her debut in January at Cavallino. The bumpers have to go back on, and the interior assembled. I think we’ll be OK, but there are always last minute details to take care of.

A 250 Engine just arrived back at the shop as well from our machinist, so I can proceed with the assembly and complete rebuild. Charlie was nice enough to make us custom piston installation tool for this engine since we’ll be doing two of them with exactly the same bore. This tool works so much nicer than the universal ones we normally use.

It’s always enjoyable to assemble an engine because it’s what I call “clean work.” Even though your hands will get oily, I’m not touching dirty, rusty, greasy parts!

Last week I had found a broken spring in a door handle to a 365GT 2+2. There were many ways to fix this problem, from making a spring from scratch to buying a complete door handle. Here were the options and the problems with each one:

Fabricating the spring: I would have to buy bulk spring wire and make a jig to bend the wire into shape. It would probably take a few tries.

Buying a complete door Handle for about $100 bucks: Alfas used a similar door handle and they’re available brand new. The problem is they’re not an exact replacement. The release mechanism is different, along with the lock cylinder. If you want matching keys, the lock cylinder would have to moved over to the new door handle, provided it’s the same shape.

Cannibalize the spring from a new door handle: It seemed like a waste of money to buy a brand new door handle to use a spring.

Final solution: Buy a used right side door handle from a Alfa Romeo that was pitted and worn for $30 bucks, with a good spring.

The Ferrari door handle had the torsion spring attached to the top of the pivot.

The Alfa spring was attached to the bottom of the pivot, but after looking at the operation of both handles, I couldn’t see a problem with using the Alfa door handle spring on the Ferrari.

It took me longer to write this blog post than it took to fix the door handle!

Thanks for everyone who has donated money to this website. It always will go towards keeping this website entertaining and up to date!

My Paypal Account is http://paypal.me/tyang3030

Donate

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530