Some more updates. So as reported in the thread: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/365-gt4-2-2-400-412/439989-help-should-i-buy-not.html The car had a coolant leak. It was a TINY hole but when up to a certain temperature (read: pressure) it will stream out an amazing amount of coolant. I soon realized that this leak was because a coolant hose rubbed on a pully. I finally got the car up on the rack and this was easily accessed and identifed...showed here. Also, another picture of the mystery item hose mess under the car. It's a Ford part--which I'll be looking up these numbers, but I still don't know 100% what it is. I replaced the damaged hose and all is well with the leak. So so far from the link above problem descriptions: The a/c is not working. - Yes, true. Have not attempted to troubleshoot yet. The windows do not go down. - Fixed. Just needed to clean the switches. The right side window works perfectly. The left side window you hear gears grinding (clutch?) but you can help it. The front bumper needs a repaint. - True, it has lots of chips on it (the lower body color part.) Someday, I'll take care of that. There is an oil leak, very small, from what looks like the oil cooler lines. (yep...slight drip leak coming from the lower oil cooler line. O-ring likely? Or just tighten down the connector. I will do that soon. There is a small coolant leak. The drips are right beside the oil drops. (yep, fixed now. No leaks) It has TRX tires with lots of tread, but they felt very hard. (the tires are new for sure and don't feel overly hard to me. I mean they aren't brand new Michelin Cups by any means, but then again, they aren't meant to be. I haven't messed with the high idle again yet. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
My body guy felt that those bumpers are of the elastomeric type, also there is a thin gauge (14 ga. we think) U-channel that is encapsulated within. I had just a small indentation in mine & he drilled out the back side of the elastomeric material & pushed it right out. We think that's why they dent so easily. A while back, I took some Leatherique to mine & they softened up & stuck like gum balls around the corners Uh oh, you better get that taken care of
There are no O-rings in fittings for the oil cooler lines. The fittings use a conical shape to seal. That mess with the Ford part in the middle is intriguing. Below is a drawing of the front dress of the cooling system. The factory components include the upper radiator hose and the lower radiator hose. In the upper hose is the thermostat. This directs the flow either to the radiator or to the bypass tube ,which leads to the lower radiator hose. In this drawing the lower radiator hose is labeled "38." The front end of hose "38" is attached to the metal tube leading from the radiator. Then if you look to the right of the overflow tank depicted in this drawing, you can see the rear half of this same radiator hose, also labeled "38," showing it to be connected to the water pump. At the water pump there is the heater hose, labeled "44." In the second drawing attached below, you can see the casting labeled "26," which includes both the lower radiator hose inlet and the heater hose "44." Heater hose "44" goes to the temp-control valve set that's at the firewall. This is also depicted in the drawing. The rear end of the heater hose "44" is depicted as attaching to the T-fitting ("59"), which resides between the two heater temp-control valves. The valves admit coolant into the heater cores. The point of these descriptions is to ask, where does the Ford part fit into the Ferrari scheme? Do you have a guess? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
After further review I want to revise my previous post. (I wish this forum allowed editing for more than one hour after posting. It sure would prevent a lot of mistaken info from persisting.) The revision is that heater hose "44" must be the return hose from the outlet side of the heater cores. The T-fitting no. "59" must also be located near the firewall, to combine the flow from the two heater cores into one hose, for the journey forward from the heater cores at the firewall area, to the water pump inlet at the front of the engine. I am still wondering about all the add-on plumbing at the front of your car. Have you tested the heater temp controls in the console? I wonder if all that extra stuff was a Dreaded Previous Owner's effort to work around a problem with the passenger compartment heating system.
You're making good progress! While expensive- a new soft set of TRX will completely transform the car- It's really amazing the difference fresh rubber makes to these nose heavy cars.
So some updates. I put the car back up on the lift for an oil change. Whomever did the previous oil change just couldn't bear to use a new copper crush gasket and had the sump plug all gummed up with RTV and gasket sealer and all sorts of crap to have it not leak oil. Really? My god. Anyway, I cleaned all that up and put a new copper crush on there--it cost me all of $1.50 for the new crush. While it was up there, I investigated more of that Ford part pretzel thing. It looks to be some sort of EGR system put on during federalization. See the green hoses coming from bungs in the cats--then those hoses run forward and into a splitter to a single hose into the Ford part. Then a hose going over to an air pump turned off the left alternator. And a vacuum hose of some kind off the Ford part going up somewhere--which I haven't investigated. So....not to offend all the California people because this car has a BAR sticker attached, but all this **** is coming off and going into a box. Jeez. hahah.. And finally...a pic of the stablemates... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
This is part of an air injection system, I believe it's designed so the cats work better. Good plan to remove all of this stuff. As little as these cars are driven it is not a big deal.
Well, also the car's new exhaust doesn't have cats in it anyway, so. Yeah, all this stuff is coming off. I should do this and THEN start the troubleshooting of the high idle--given that vacuum hose going to who knows where. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Pretty neat. I just exchanged emails with the guy who owned the car from 1989 to 1994/5. He purchased it from the original owner--who was the first owner in the US. Supposedly an LA producer. Interesting.
Love the Alfa 75 3.0 v6, great cars to drive owned several of them. I have a little collection of Italian cars, mostly never imprted to the USA, such as: Alfa Sei 2.5v6 carb version (six dell orto's carbs) Alfa 90 v6 2.5 v6 injection Lancia Thema (i own six models from 2.0 ie to 3.0 v6 Busso) Lancia Kappa Coupe 2.4 Maserati Qporte Serie III 1981. Still searcing for that elusive 412 5 speed -
I am the one who passed on the car, really happy everything is working out for you! And the issues have been minor!
Oh...now I'm having fun! Replacing the two upper HVAC vent switches. Both broken due to seized heater valves....one slider was so broken is crumbled into the hole a bit. I replaced both switches and am in the process of connecting everything back up. One of my heater valves was freed up by way of WD40, but the other one is really seized. We'll see if I can get it free. I also got replacement trim parts that go around the fog and hazard switches. One came in the coolest little baggie ever. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Well, some more projects this evening. Since the car currently won't start at all, I figured I'd tackle the starter--at least removing it. I'm really not sure why people freak out over the removal of the right rear header but that's about the easiest header I've ever had to remove. Most people say you need a little stubby 13mm. All of the nuts were easy to remove except the center one on the larger header mating plate....but I went at it with this! hahaha. It's certainly not stubby. Can of PB Blaster (which I didn't even have to use) there for a sense of size. That's a normal ratchet. So now, to get to the top bolt on the starter itself. But also, I found what is probably the source of my issue. A rather large (probably 5-7mm) exposed copper part on the positive cable to the starter which was covered in burned electrical tape. Oh very nice. A classic fix in a weather exposed area. Anyway. I'm going to clean all of that up--or replace the cable. Problem is, the cable is routed in a nice sheath which means the cable is run and THEN the ends are attached--which makes for fitting a new cable not so fun. I may not need to replace the starter at all, but while I'm here, if I remove it, I'm going to see about getting it rebuilt. Might as well. Even though the header is easy, I would rather not do it again in a year or two. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The PO told me something about the starter, either he had issues or it was replaced with a rebuilt one. Does anyone sell a rebuild kit for the starter? If you can do all that work rebuilding a started should be easy as pie for you.
When Andrew bought the car from the owner in LA, it didn't start and that was called out in the eBay auction as such. In the service history (which 50679 has an awesomely complete service history with it) it does show a new starter fitted a while ago. Andrew said his non-starting issue was to do with loose and dirty connections to the starter. When I got the car, the starter worked great....but then gradually took one or two turns of the key, which turned into 10 turns...which then turned into nothing ever. I do get a click. I actually now don't think the starter is bad, but it is the battery cable. We'll see...my efforts are ongoing. When I get some more time, I'll get everything tested out and see.
More fun this evening. I attempted to get the car ready for the local FCA concours tomorrow here around Seattle. The biggest issue has been my no start situation. Attached is the picture of the rather old and stiff and exposed positive battery cable. I am going to order a new one from Eurospares, but in the meantime this evening I made one myself--hoping that it was the cable preventing the starting. Connected it all back up and nope...just a click. So I removed the starter since I already had the right rear header off and had easy access. Whomever the engineer was who made that upper nut SO damn inaccessible I'd like to kick in the nuts. But I got it off eventually. Testing the starter on the bench, I can get the solenoid to operate strongly, but no starter motor movement at all. So it looks like it's bad. I'll decide whether to rebuild or buy the gear reduction starter next week. So, I'll head to the FCA thing sans-Ferrari. I'll drive the Alfa. Too bad I can't enter it into my "Enzo era V12" class slot. hmph. Some other pics. I got some new door keys... the only door key I had was an old Ilco copy that was hard to get turn leverage onto. I bought two of the new keys--they are awesome. Here is a before and after pic. Also, here are the two new ventilation sliders installed. I also finally freed up both heater valves. I got one free pretty easily with WD40--but the other one was a beeeyaotch. I finally got it free after 2-3 days soaking it with PB Blaster. It's smooth now and so I'm working to get the center console put back together. I also need to source a new fan ventilation switch--and since these are some old nasty looking Lucas type units, I'll try to get two and replace both of them. They are NLA from Ferrari, but again, they look identical to Lucas units used in a gazillion cars from the 60s and 70s...I'll get some. BTW, they are the same switches as in the series 1 cars, just with a little plastic square and a different "grip" that gives it a completely different look. Anyway, that's my status for today.....disappointed I won't make the show with the car, but it'll come together. I do miss driving it. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
So I dropped the starter off at the starter rebuild place. A quick additional test and the starter motor engages just fine. This looks like simply a solenoid failure....the solenoid is pushing the engagement gear up towards the flywheel, but is not applying voltage to the starter motor itself. I likely will not rebuild the entire starter (no need..it tests out ok and it was actually rebuilt not too long ago in the car's past) but will replace the solenoid or whatever inside the solenoid has failed.
Holy crap....just got off the phone with my starter rebuild guy (same guy did my Lancia Beta alternator last year too). He said it was an easy and quick fix....the solenoid as suspected--had a good fixed unit from another parts alternator he had laying around that did the trick perfectly. Seriously...that was a 4 hour turnaround. Amazing...this guy is awesome. I'll be picking it up on Thursday morning. Unfortunately, out of town tomorrow. Then I'll have this thing back together. SO....if anyone else is wondering (do people like these status updates or not? Not sure..). The situation with the "ferraristarter.com" starters....they did a major design change that results in CNC machining differences. This had to do with a supplier no longer having some of the internals of the older design available--so they had to change. They don't know exactly when new ones will be available...could be a few weeks, could be more. So that's what prompted me to take the thing to my starter rebuild guy who turned it around in a day.
Keep the updates coming. This is not good news about Ferraristarter.com. Looks like I'm in for more of a wait. Cheers Al
I picked up the starter today and it's now re-installed. Works like a champ! Cost me all of $80. As you can see the old solenoid (which isn't even the stock Marelli one) is pretty weathered and worse for wear. The starter motor itself inside was in perfect condition. My guy replaced the solenoid and all is well. Sorry for the blurry pic of the fixed starter re-installed. Also pictured is the old solenoid. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I LOVE THIS THREAD! Please keep it coming. It is inspiring. Your car is incredible and I would never have the ability to do what you are doing- nor the wallet to have someone else do it. Thank you for sharing , and the pictures. ScottS
