The Ferrari 365GTC/4 at our shop had a parking brake that just wasn’t holding, it felt the handle wasn’t clicking in place and staying put.

After I removing the parking brake cover plate, and before removing the handle assembly, I had to vacuum out the mouse droppings and seeds a rodent deposited in this area. Ferraris are just like any car, and although people may think working on them is glamorous, there is still “crappy work” to be done!

With the parking brake on the work bench for inspection, it became pretty obvious what was going on.

Most parking brakes use a spring loaded catch and teeth to pull on the parking brake handle. Words like “sector,” “paw,” or “pawl,” come to mind and maybe someone can enlighten me with the nomenclature, but I knew what needed to fixed!

Over the years, the spring loaded lock was rounded off by wear, and was no longer positively engaging with the corresponding teeth. Any pressure against the (pawl?) tooth, and it would pop out of place, releasing the brake cable.

The repair was to grind away the rounded portion of the tooth to fit the corresponding teeth for a positive engagement.

A new air cleaner arrived in the mail for the C/4. The old one was pretty beat up, but I always laugh at the prospects of installing an air cleaner on a 365GTC/4. I usually say, “how do you install an air filter on a C/4? Take a perfectly good new one, crumple it up into a ball, and unfurl it inside the air box!” The problem is the air horns have to be installed after the air filter goes in, all the while, trying to get nuts, bolts and washers installed in the limited space between the side draft carburetor, velocity stacks, and the inner fenders! It’s not going to be fun!