A little over a year ago, I was talking with a friend’s mother at the neighborhood block party. The subject of cars came up and we were soon talking about Ferrari’s. She told me that her husband had been a fan as well. He had used his Ferrari as a daily driver until the day he died. After that came an awkward silence; as I tried to figure out the appropriate amount of time before I could ask what happened to the car! As luck would have it, she had it put on blocks and it was still sitting under a tarp in her back yard, 10+ years later. 30 days after that (I had to clean my garage), Ferrari 250 GTE # 4247 was mine.
I have never done a full restoration of a car, but have done enough patching that I feel I can pull this off. On the plus side, the car was running when it was last parked. Also, I am only the third owner of a 40-year old, 60,000 mile car. To the best of my knowledge, it has never been in a serious accident, though it looks like he may have pulled a little too far into the garage at one point! Best of all, the parts are all there and they are in the right place.
On the downside, this car has been sitting for some time. Mice have gotten to the hoses and spark plug wires (though the smaller wires seem to have been spared). The leather, after baking in the Southern California sun for a decade, is pealing off whatever it used to hang on. It has a poor paint job (silver over the original white). Plus, there is oil everywhere. The engine is covered, the underside is covered and the carburetors could barely be seen. By the way, the carburetors are Weber 63 DCS’, not the 40 DCL’s one would expect. I checked with Weber and they didn’t know that they had made a DCS. However, Tom checked with François, who says they are ok. They have a slightly different choke, but have been used on the GTE.
It appears that someone (probably the previous owner’s son) has tried to work on the car, with fairly obvious errors. The spark plug wires were hooked up incorrectly, one barrel of a carburetor was set in the open position when the rest were closed and the valve cover gaskets were torn. I am hoping these gaskets are the source of the oil problem. Of course, from what I can see on the bulletin board, Ferrari’s have no shortage of locations for oil leaks! I will just do my best and see what happens when I fire it up.
At this point, I am going through the engine compartment; cleaning, rebuilding and adjusting. I would love to do a body-off restoration, but have neither the space nor the talent for such a job. I am anxious to try to fire it up, but still see enough deferred maintenance to make me understand the value of patience. Fortunately, I am in no hurry and am thoroughly enjoying the time I can spend in the garage. And when I do get frustrated, I can play Tom & François’ video from the web site, the one where they do the test drive of Scott Garvey’s GTE. Ooh that sound! Then, I can get a glass of wine, go out to my garage and dream…
