Ferrari 308GT/4 Deferred Maintenance



The 308GT/4 I have at the shop is coming along. It’s a relatively low mileage car that is largely original, but with original cars, they still have their issues.

Small things needed to be addressed like the door locks. The control rods wear and need adjustments so the locks will work. I pulled the door panel to have a look.

I was happy to see such little rust inside the doors, which supported the low mileage this car showed on the odometer. The light rust you see here is just surface rust, and there was no sign of deep rust. I sprayed some rust converter paint to keep this light rust from spreading.

The next issue to address was the fuse panel. Ferraris from this era used a fuse block that was riveted together. After a couple of decades of use, the rivets start to loosen from heat cycling, and as the rivets loosen, the connection gets hotter, melting the surrounding plastic, loosening the rivets even more, causing more heat, where eventually, everything melts.

The fuse block on this car was in better shape than most I’ve seen, but one junction was starting to show some weakening and melting.

We decided to go ahead and buy the upgraded fuse blocks made by The Birdman. He has been supplying these fuse blocks for many years and although is not a stock replacement, it is a reliable replacement for an original poor design.

You can see how the heat from the blower motor circuit got hot enough to melt the connector together. This kind of heat made the rivet loosen, and once it starts to wiggle, the connection gets worse and worse.

After I rebuilt the front suspension on this car, I noticed a creaking noise coming from the front end. With new A-arm bushings, the tighter front suspension was causing the steering rack to creak. On closer inspection, I found the rubber pads between the rack and frame mounts were deteriorated. I made a new set up from rubber sheets and replaced them. Creaks gone!

As I put more mileage on this car, I found a new oil leak forming in the back of the car. The owner had replaced the clutch recently and they filled the transaxle to the proper level, but the old axle seals were not up to the task of keeping the oil in place! It looks like gear oil had been slinging out past the axle shaft seals and landing all over the exhaust manifolds. I installed new seals, and the leaking stopped.