I have not blogged in several weeks because I’m still recovering from shoulder surgery. When my doctor first told me I would be in a sling for 8 weeks and not allowed to do anything with that arm, I was incredulous, but the reality is I had to follow doctor’s orders to recover properly. I don’t think I’ve taken 8 weeks off doing absolutely nothing in my whole adult life!

I got a call from an owner of a 1972 Ferrari 365GTC/4 that needed some help with his car. I believe he said he recently purchased it and it wasn’t running right. He wanted to know if he could send it to me to look at it, but I explained that I was recovering from shoulder surgery and would be several weeks before I could start returning to work. I currently have a couple of cars in my shop waiting once I get back to speed, but he was willing to wait.

The color of this car is pretty rare and is called Nijinski Green, its original color. As the 70s color palette started to be replaced by the reds, blacks, and yellows of the 80s, many people painted over the earth tones of the 70s into red Ferraris, so today colors like these are celebrated. It’s funny how something out of fashion can return to fashion after a few decades!

Since he wasn’t driving the car anyway, he went ahead and sent me the car to await my diagnosis. Since I still really can’t drive a stick shift, I had the driver of the transporter drive the car into the shop, but I could clearly hear she was not happy! It barely made it into the shop under her own power, but I’m looking forward to getting this car back up to speed.

This car is very nice and looks to have been restored recently. Nearly all the details are present. The only thing I spotted missing was the little rubber grommet that is usually glued to the top of the shifter boot. It’s usually destroyed when the old one is replaced. Anybody making these or have a pattern to copy?

The engine compartment looks pretty tidy, so I’m hoping the diagnosis of why this car is running so poorly is easy. I’ll start with the ignition to make sure all the plugs are firing, and move onto the carburetion. Wish me luck!