I’ve been prepping a 250GT Pininfarina Coupe to show at Cavallino in January and it’s coming down to the final cleanup, wash, and detail before loading this car on the truck for Florida. I often hire a detailer to come over to my shop to do the final prep, promising I will stop working on the other cars to limit the amount of dust landing on the clean car before sending it out! Cleaning cars is my least favorite job, so finding a good detailer who’s conscientious, pragmatic, and has younger eyes than mine to spot the imperfections is a good guy to have!

The truck arrives in three days, so I’ll have to stop any dusty work including any sweeping until this car is loaded and out of my shop.

One final task before sending this car out was to replace the rubber gasket on the fuel cap with a cork gasket. Every time I opened the trunk, I was met with the smell of gasoline and I traced it down to the filler cap. The rubber looks original and was rock hard. The gas tank vents into the atmosphere normally, so there is always a little bit of venting, but without a decent seal at the gas cap, there would be too many vapors escaping through the filler neck. The first task was to remove the old brittle gasket material and then install a cork gasket in its place. I have found a fuel safe cork material tends to last longer and does not get affected by any fuel formula that can otherwise affect even fuel safe rubber.