I’ve been so busy working on other people’s Ferraris, I haven’t had much time to drive my personal car. I had to take my 330 America in for her annual saftey road inspection so I took the time to put some work in.

It’s been over 20 years since I bought this car, and at least 12 since I made her road worthy, but there were some details that I never fixed on the ignition wires.

I was missing the little brackets that secure the wires to the distributors and bought an extra set for my car when I installed then on Tom Wilson’s car.

I marked my wires and disconnected them from the distributor cap to install new o-rings and the new clips. This car might not be the cleanest car, but at least the details will be right!

I took the car out for a spin, and saw the ammeter wasn’t working right. The needle was pegged and overcharging the battery. I confirmed the problem with my circuit tester and took the voltage regulator out for testing.

After 55 years of service the voltage regulator decided to retire, but my electric guy offered me this unit to keep my car on the road.

For $20 bucks, it was the cheapest repair for my problem. Even though my voltage regulator is hard to see on my car, I may try to hide this unit inside the original box. It’s small enough to fit with some modifications. I’ve heard other people have been doing the same thing, and this might be a nice little project to try.

The proof that my voltage regulator has been in service for over 50 years was it still had it’s tamper proof wire attached to the case! I would almost hate to cut this artifact off, but I’m going to try to replicate it when I put it all back together with modern guts. Stay tuned!