Front bumper after old paint removal, scuffing and prepping, ready for paint. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Headlights burned out so this is a good time to get the buckets adjusted and cleaned up. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
To get the buckets high enough to remove the plastic trim I had to disconnect the inner axle bolt, otherwise the limiting arm was hitting the chassis (even with the limiting bolt removed). Image Unavailable, Please Login
Adjusting rings cleaned and re-installed with new lamps. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Headlight bucket trim had previously been painted and was in bad shape. Stripped and primed with Krylon black primer and Krylon Semigloss black. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Working lights again! To get the undertray back in place I propped it up on a box. The sheet metal screws are still a little issue. I don't think the ones I have are original and three are two different types and all the screws along the back edge were missing. I don't know if the originals were silver or yellow plated either. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Sadly a previous owner had destroyed the grill. The car had "Deer Whistles" on it when it got it, but I don't think they were bolted here. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I wanted a repair that did not take the part farther from original. The grill is anodized and I'd like to keep it that way, rather than have it powder coated. I think if I spent more time with this method (JB Weld) I could get it a little better. I kind of just wanted to see if it would work at all. The JB Weld was diluted with some alcohol to make it into a pourable liquid. I poured it into the holes and let it set. Then painted the defects with silver paint. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Installing the grill. None of the hardware holding the grill in place was original when I got the car. I don't know what is supposed to be there. Now it has stainless steel screws and nuts holding it in place. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Still need to clean the hardware for turn signal mounting. I needed to get the car out and heated to test the cooling system. I'd have to take this all apart again to drain the system. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
During my assessment of the cooling system I noticed a small leak at the top of the radiator. I suspect similar to ones that have plagued many 308 GT4 owners. I used all my remaining vacation and took 2 weeks off work to replace those hoses, so no time to go back and take the radiator out until next year. I decided to solder it in place. I used 40W iron and the lowest melting point solder I had. I did not drain the radiator and I unscrewed the vent. The 40W iron got some solder to stick in place then I used a small hand-held butane torch to get the solder to flow. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I was prepared to fix two leaks but could not find the other area on the driver's side of the radiator. Based on the dripped wet-sanding reside I find all over the car, I think that white discoloration of the driver's side could be just reside from the last repaint.
Took the car out for a few laps around the block to heat up the cooling system and it got hot alright. In fact it got pretty hot waiting for the fans to come on...they never did. Curious that the horn that I worked so hard on restoring was also dead...and I thought the clock used to work, but it is out also. Turns out I had a somewhat typical high resistance overheating of a feed line to the fuse panel. This caused an open circuit of the feed line which surprisingly feeds the HORN,CLOCK and the FANS. I bridged the high resistance rivet with some solder until I can get an upgraded fuseblock. The first picture is a reference picture showing the location of the relays. For the 1978 cars, the relays are different than what is shown in the owner's manual and the shop manual. The manual supplement does not have a new diagram. As far as I know the only place they are documented is on the inside of the panel. Next shot is the feed coming from above to the last three fuses and the solder bridging the open circuit. What you don't see is a jumper on the back connecting the last three fuses. The rivet carries the current from back to front and in this case had become open circuit from overheating due to high resistance which caused more heating and so on. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Beautiful sight to see the fans running again! The engine likes it too. Horn and clock work again. Time for a little oil in the horn compressor. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I swapped my clock and the oil temp gauge a long time ago. It seemed much more important to have the oil parameters in the centre of the dash rather than to see the time. I know, I know, Ferrari is never wrong ...
What an amazing thread, just read from stem to stern over the weekend. This is the kind of stuff that has made reading car magazines obsolete for me. Common sense, practical and skilled sorting and TLC for a highly worthy car. Hats off. John in CT.
So, the few solder joints on the fuse block worked very well so I went ahead and soldered all of the metal-metal connections and then polished the metal. 36 solder joints in all. Tricky work because the plastic melts just about at the same temp. as the solder. Here it is ready to go back in. Checked with Ohm meter which shows no resistance anywhere. I also put all new fuses in place, some of the old ones may have some oxidation on the ends. Image Unavailable, Please Login
On my car the reason it melted was the prongs needed to be tighter. I want to keep the original ones so about every 2 years I open the panle up and bend them in!
Ok so after a few runs I don't have any leaks so it is time to put the front under panel back in place. Thanks to the pictures in Rob's Adventure thread I see that there probably should continue to be a clamp holding the two front cooling tubes together. So I went ahead and put that on. I gave the hose clamps a last tightening and got ready to install the panel. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I was impressed at how nice the aluminum looked in Rob's new engine compartment, so I had to make my aluminum panel look just as good as it had gotten pretty scratched while cutting it and drilling the holes. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
