I’ve been steadily ticking away at this grey GTE I have at the shop. Since I had not previously worked on this car, how well the electrics worked was all new to me.

The first problem was in the turn signal switch. There were no turn signals working, and the circuit kept blowing the fuse. The first problem I found was the connectors on the switch were previously poorly repaired, and the second problem I found was some of the wiring was rubbed bare and making ground. I re-insulated wiring and sent the switch out to ODD Parts and Jim Simpson had it working correctly in no time. Thanks Jim!

The next problem I found was in the ignition switch. The contacts inside were not working too well and was causing intermittent start problems. After a disassembly and cleaning, and we were back in business.

With the ignition switch working, I went to prime the carburetors so I could start the engine for the first time only to find the fuel pump not working. All the electrical connections were correct and functioning, so I had to pull the fuel pump out to find the problem.

It turned out to be a combination of a stiff diaphragm along with some dirty contact points.

Inside the car also had a laundry list of items to sort out. You may recall this car had a funky center console with a bunch of toggle switches that I had to return to stock. It has taken months to find all the correct switches, and hours to sort out the electrical connections. Modifications to to the wiring, and routing them correctly took a bunch of time tracing wires and returning it to follow the Ferrari Factory wiring diagram. Although it’s better than nothing, the Factory diagram gives very little information, and has very little direction to what color the wires are supposed to be, but a combination of logic, and a couple of other GTEs at the shop to copy, I got the center console switches working correctly.

After sorting the wiring, I polished the knobs to match.

I’m proud we returned the center console back to the stock configuration, but there was a ton of time to get this right. Not only was finding each knob and switch challenging, but there are a ton of little pieces that didn’t always come with each switch. Set screws, retaining nuts with special pitches, knobs with the correct letter designation and size all had to match. I’m glad it’s finally done!