Excuse the rant, but I just wanted to bitch a little bit on some of the struggles I have working in old Ferraris.

Several weeks ago, I was installing the A/C compressor on a 365GT 2+2 I have at my shop. It’s a car I’m working on getting back on the road, and sorting out the accessories in the engine compartment. I cant start the engine and move onto the rest of the mechanics until I get the radiator installed, but the A/C compressor is much easier to install without the radiator in place, so I had to get that sorted first. I ordered a pair of belts from my Ferrari supplier and found it was back ordered, so I waited for it to arrive. After a week or so, I got the belts and tried to install them. They were too short! I went back into my stash of old parts and found a set of used A/C belts and found them to be the same size that were sent to me, so something had been changed on the 365 I’m working on.

I had to go back to the method of trial and error to get the correct belts for this particular car. I started with the “correct” belts and took them down to my local parts store to try and guess what size would fit. The way Ferrari installed the A/C compressor on these cars, the fit is very tight, with very little room for adjustment. It took three tries to find just the right fit. What is normally a quick installation of a couple of belts, turned into a several day affair. Ugh.