With the distributors out for service and rebuilding, I could turn my attention to the carburetors. The 400GTs have 38 DCOE side draft carbs and after I took the air boxes off, and the associated velocity stacks, I was finally able to get to removing each carburetor.

One sign I did not like to see was the squeeze out of red RTV on the intakes. RTV is not compatible with fuel, so anything inside the intake runner exposed to fuel would eventually be sucked into the combustion chambers. It’s not catastrophic, but using the proper o-rings would have been a better method of sealing the intake runners.

Taking the first intake runner out proved exactly what I suspected. Any RTV inside the intake runner, was missing, showing that it had eroded and was sucked into the engine.

I started the arduous process of disassembling each carburetor, inspecting the parts, and making sure things were working properly.

Some of the bores were showing some kind of concretion. It was probably from cold starting the car, and never letting the engine warm up. The cold fuel from the accelerator pumps would collect in the lower half of the side draft carburetor bore and when the fuel eventually evaporated, it left this residue behind. After doing several of these cold starts and shut downs, the residue can really collect.

Something strange happened in one of the float chambers to leave this residue, but it’s anyone’s guess. I know when I’m done there won’t be any trace of this anomaly!

The DCOE carburetor just fits in my gallon sized ultra sonic cleaner. I only have to do one carburetor at a time, as by the time I strip the next one, the first one is ready to come out of the tank, so it becomes an all day disassembly and reassembly affair!

I needed to replace the old dry rotted o-rings on the accelerator pump plugs, so I ordered a set of 7mm x 2mm viton o-rings. They came in a set of 25, and since I only needed 12, I figured I would have enough to do the next set of 6 DCOE carbs. The 0-rings cost about 7 bucks, but the shipping was $10!

What mess it was to pick out all the RTV!

I put the distributors back in the car along with the carburetors, timed in the engine to the ignition, balanced the carbs, and got the engine running fairly well so I could take the 400GT out for a test drive. The car still needs a clutch, but I wanted to get drive the car for the first time to identify any other issues before taking the car apart. Here’s the video of first round of work with a test drive.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to my fund drive. Your contribution allows me to make more content for everyone to enjoy. If you haven’t contributed, please consider joining this community of like minded individuals that value the information shared on this website, and all the other media platforms I upload to. It brings us all together to celebrate old Ferraris and keeping them alive!

If you’d like to send money via USPS, you can send checks here:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530