A gearstick where once there was none... | Page 2 | FerrariChat

A gearstick where once there was none...

Discussion in '612/599' started by brogenville, Jan 16, 2020.

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  1. brogenville

    brogenville Formula 3
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    And here's the deal with the brake pedal... I noticed that the same casting was used on various ferrari and maserati models, but the final machining was different to match the width of the pedal to the toe plate (the manual cars have a narrower toe plate than F1 cars). So this was a rough cut on a spare brake pedal so that the pedal could be matched to the toe plate. N.B... the toe plate for the brake pedal looks as if its just the same as the toe plate on the F1 car, but with two rows removed- it isn't though- its a different part entirely. Also, I neatened it up later...
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  2. brogenville

    brogenville Formula 3
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  3. brogenville

    brogenville Formula 3
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  4. NYC Fred

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    Love it. Imagine.
    A Ferrari mod that ADDS value !
     
  5. brogenville

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    There it is... the complete gearbox linkage! Not a lot to it on the surface, but the turret and control plate are complex parts. Was a cool moment to assemble it on my floor and think that it would soon be in the car, hidden away, but transforming the driving experience.

    In the assemblage below, I got some used parts from a 550- things like the connecting plate, clamp, and dampers. Save a fortune compared to new...
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  6. brogenville

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    Right... so this is where it gets silly... this dumb little plate was about £40 delivered. Thing is, you dont really know what it is from looking at the parts diagram, so you assume it could be critical. Turns out its just the plate that the clutch end stop bolt reacts against, and saves wear and tear on the plastic pedal box molding. If you're doing this yourself one day, I suggest you can save yourself a few quid and make this yourself with a steel plate, a hacksaw/drill, and about half an hour of your time.
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  7. brogenville

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    Here we have the cup that the clutch master cylinder rod sits in. I paid Ferrari about £30 for this part before I worked out it was used on loads of Fiats, and bought a spare from them for £4. I've got the Fiat part number on my spreadsheet if its ever needed.
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  8. brogenville

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    So, this is the Ferrari part for the gear stick surround, and the story behind this is that the Ferrari parts diagrams don't list the part for RHD cars. I ended up buying this part anyway, as it was suggested by Eurospares that it might be the same part, even though it didn't look like it. Well, as soon as I got it, I could see that it was different between LHD and RHD, as the one for my RHD car should be symmetrical. So, it of a waste of money, but it showed me just how simple the part is. It ended up being a stroke of luck as it happens, as I made a bit of a fuss with the parts desk at Ferrari Edinburgh (who were super helpful I have to say), who did a bit of digging to find the correct part number, as they too were super confused about what part I should be ordering. They ended up getting through the CAD drawings for the correct part, just to confirm that it is what I was after, only to say that its no longer available. Well, that hardly mattered as not I had the drawings, I could easily recreate the part in CAD. I printed it out in nylon, and "my" version is much stiffer than the slightly crappy part that Ferrari wanted £250 for. Will upload a photo of my 3d printed part later as it was before it was trimmed in gray leather. Oh, and I manged to sell on the ferrari part on for almost what I paid for it, so the final part to me ended up costing me about £30.
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  9. brogenville

    brogenville Formula 3
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    So an important part of the project was always going to be reflashing the engine ECU's. Its something that seems scary when you first read about it, but its actually not that hard to do. Even so, I bought a £5 Bosch Me7 out of a salvage VW golf to practice on. This is the setup, such as it is. You need a power supply, galletto cable, old laptop, and some wiring to make up a basic harness. For the Ferrari ecu's, I actually got an ecu plug out of a Smart Fortwo, and removed all wiring except the ones needed to talk to the K-line.
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  10. brogenville

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    This is actually me downloading the flash file from one of the Ferrari Me7 ecus. The scary thing is that you have to remove the ecu from its case in order to access the boot pin.

    Once the file was downloaded, it was sent over to 360Trev to be corrected for gated manual operation.
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  11. brogenville

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    To give you an idea of what the flash file looks like, this is it open in a hex reader. How the f@ck Trev managed to comprehend this is well beyond me!
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  12. brogenville

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    So this essentially shows how I did the clutch pedal- Ferrari give you a nice CAD image showing the pedal details from side on. The image is in the workshop manual and was put in to direct you to the correct pedal travel to set in the stop screw. I doubt they ever thought it would be used to reverse engineer all the critical contact points for the pedal.
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  13. brogenville

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    This is an early iteration of the CAD designed gearstick surround. I used a laser scan of the gear gate to show the dimensions were perfect before printing. Bit of a side project, but I now have laser scans of various gear gates, so may put them into production if the factory supply dries up. They're already scary expensive already!
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  14. brogenville

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    Car on axle stands! This was mid-october, at about 1 am, which is when most of this work gets done due to the various family commitments. Not exactly the ideal environment to be doing all this work, but where there's a will...
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  15. brogenville

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  16. brogenville

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    OK, so jumping ahead a bit now (its not always easy to remember to take loads of photos when you're workign on your back in a cold garage in the dead of night), but here is the F1 actuator and pump removed. To get to this point took a lot of work. There's the various trays/supports that come off easily enough, but then you have to do battle with the connections between the exhausts and the 4 branches coming off the exhaust manifolds. You look at the first and cannot think how its remotely possible to get to all the bolts, but in the reassurance that he bolts went on somehow, you press on. One by one they come off, with various bloody knuckles to clean up after.

    You can now free off the F1 power pack, but it doesnt come out until the gearbox is moved well down. You undo the bolts to dismount the gearbox, but even then it doesn't get low enough to make space for you, until the half shafts and ARB are disconnected too.
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  17. brogenville

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    Some (fascinating) shots of the torque tube that I took as I was a bit concerned when took it out that there was a bit of eccentricity in the shaft. I investigated getting it refurbished, but the three specialists I spoke to all said that it looked fine to them. Since it wasn't vibrating before, I decided to leave it as is.

    Apparently its those hooligan drivers doing big burnouts and standing starts that cause the eccentricity. The shock loading in the drive train when this happens causes the inner shaft to plasticity deform slightly. Feedback I got from one specialist was that every Ferrari torque tube they take out has some degree of wobble in it.
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  18. brogenville

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  19. brogenville

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    So I've got no record of the clutch ever having been replaced, so I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by how little wear it was showing. Also, for all the clutch slipping theatrics of the F1 system, there isn't actually that much in the way of heat damage on the flywheel and pressure plate, compared to many cars I've taken apart.

    At this point I sent the clutch, friction plate and flywheel off to a motor sports clutch builder. So this is where a clutch job doesn't have to cost thousands- I got everything refinished for about £250. Be sure to make some permanent markings of the balance marks painted onto the clutch and flywheel, as the paint will get wiped off during the refurb.
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  20. brogenville

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    Bit of oil on the back of the crank, though strangely not from the rear main seal. Instead, there's a bolt inside there, and the oil had just weeped out ever so slightly over the years. Even so, I tool the chance to replace the pilot bearing and clutch seal (see photos later).

    By the way, apologies if this is painfully boring stuff!
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  21. brogenville

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  22. brogenville

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    This is the insulation panel from the top of the tranmission tunnel removed. Sections need to be cut out to make space for the gear linkage damper. Again, all markings are there showing where to cut.

    Second photo shows where to cut the hole for the gearstick.

    All edges were finished with aluminium heat proof tape.
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  23. brogenville

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    Just showing edges sealed off.
     

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  24. brogenville

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  25. brogenville

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    This is the bottom of the centre console trim around the gear turret. The leather was carefully peeled back to reveal the cut lines for to allow the opening to be widened to allow passage of the turret. Parts all saved so that they can be repaired back to original spec if desired by a future owner.
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