Very strange .......

One last thing back in the back.

Find the hydraulic control for the load-leveling system,
and find the associated bleeder.

The controler was surprisingly easy to get to,
inboard of the right-rear wheel, and on the frame.

Bleed provision is visable on the extreme left of the valve;
looks just like a brake bleeder.

How hard can that be ?

Pretty clean car for 26,000 miles,
and 12 years old ?
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Move to the front of the car.

Jack up the front for access to fluid fittings underneath the front.

The hood is restrained from fully opening by string so that it will
not be damaged when I open and close the garage door.

On floor in left of photo is the cover that protects the
steering rack area.
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Take a look into the fluid reservoir for the
power steering / load-leveler system.

No surprise, almost nothing there.

That’s OK, since I’ll have to drain the system
to flush and refill with the
recommended Shell DONAX TA.

 

.
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No kidding !

When this first started,
I thought I had left one of
those dollys under the wheel.

You know, the kind that lifts the car up,
so you can push it around the garage........

 

Well, while we are under the hood, and waiting for
fluid to drain, why not have a look at the air cleaners.

No need to, since the car had a full 30K service less
that 1,500 miles ago. but why not.

So, what is all this ?

Cotton wadding for a "lower" filter, and a bunch
of dirt and sand in the bottom of the air cleaner.

How did this stuff get into the air cleaner ?

I suspect I drove on a dirt road, and the trash
was sucked into the bottom of the air cleaner
through the "water drain holes."

Is this typical FERRARI design?
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Decision was to do as complete a drain on the fluid as possible,
and more about that in a few days.

Removed the "steering protection" pan to give access the a banjo bolt
on the steering rack. This bolt was the lowest point I could find on the
fluid system that I could access.

Losten the bolt a couple of turns.

Fire the car (aprehension here), and let the pump put out all the
fluid possible - which was not much.

Put in about a quart of new fluid. Idle the car maybe five minutes, and
"power drain" again.
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Empty pan for recycle.

Let car drain over the weekend, and the last picture shows all we
got after the first 10 minutes post "power drain."

Tighten up entire system and add 2 quarts, and idle ten minutes.

"Power drain" through the bleeder on the rear suspension (see photo's above).

With any luck, this will flush 99+% of the "bad fluid" out of the system.

I'll probably drive the car a month, and then drain
and refill again, just to be sure.

Oil's cheaper than shocks.
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We are now back on the road !

The car drives much better,
with the rear handling much more predictably.

Have put about 200 miles on the car, around town,
with a few brief "spurts" on the interstate,
nothing over 100 MPH, though.
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Some of you may recall that when
I had this car serviced by TIM STANFORD
in Fort Lauderdale, that I had Tim R&R the intake plenums
and powdercoat them red.

The stock paint scheme has no red under the hood,
and I thought that a FERRARI V-12 just deserved,
and looked better, with some red accent.

Tim's job turned out very well !
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Well, we still haven't figured out what
the problem was in the first place.

HOWEVER, we are getting out the BIG guns,
and working on that.

I hope to have an answer this week - so stay tuned.

You will recall the symptom was bad handling,
and was traced almost immediately to this:

Blown up shock lower.

All the fluid rejoins the environment.......

As RIFLEMAN pointed out, it looks like
that area of the car has had a leak for some time,
based of the buildup in the area.

We later determined the fluid leak was
from the SHOCK, and not from the brakes.
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Now that I can afford this car, I can't see squat,
so out comes the NIKON binocular microscope,
which we use in my racing program.
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This unit is hardly state-of-the-art, but I suspect it
is not only better that what I used in high school biology,
but better than most home shops.

It of course has it's own lighting source.
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I went back, and with the microscope, and looked at the "bad shaft"
in the shock again. Also the seal.

You see the NIKON has no camera port, so I will just report what I saw:

Shaft work - probably consistant with a leaking shock with 26,000 miles.

no big problems with either part.
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Then went back at looked at the seals around
the spherical bearing in the mounting area.

Compared the old seals with the new supplied by RICAMBI.

The cleaner, smaller pair are the new seals.

I believe there is a clue here...........
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I am open to more scientific thinking on this,
but here's where I'm going:

The seals "expanded" from exposure (over time)
to something they didn't like. We know it wasn't
brake fluid - a natural choice - since there were
no brake problems or leaks.

It was also something FERRARI didn't expect the seal to
come in contact with - or FERRARI would have specified
another type of material for the seal.

It may have - and I think probably - also degraded the seal
at the top of the shock body, where the rod moves up and down.

This allowed, over time, small amounts of the
shock / power steering fluid to drool down and "wet" the lower seals.

Hence the seals degrade.
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OK: I little quick review, and then to the point.

If you go pack to Post #45, you will see what I found in the bottom
of the shock body after disassembly. If you go forward from that
point for several posts, you can form the conclusion that the "debris"
was in fact the "shock piston seal." Intended to be in the shock,
but on the piston, and not at the bottom of the body.

You will further see that not all the "seal" was there,
the remainder probably blown out the rupture in the shock body.

However, I think the missing part of the "seal" is integral to the explaination !

You will remember that the "missing" portion of the seal seal
would be the portion necessary to "fill in the gap" here:
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Now, imagine that the missing piece of "seal"
is about this big, or perhaps a little smaller.

(Could have been two (2) smaller pieces)
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So, this piece of seal (or smaller) has been
pretty well beaten up when it was partially
"held" by the shock piston rings, top and bottom.

Seems fairly flexable, perhaps more than originally.
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Let's take that existing piece, and cut a little bit off,
and get this smaller portion.
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Assume that the volume of high-pressure
fluid moving in the system has enough force
to get this little bit of plastic into the opening
of the banjo bolt that admits and releases
the fluid from the shock body itself.

I pushed it in with less than a pound
of force - actually maybe a few ounces.

Also assume that the reason the plastic is all found
in the bottom in the first place it that the WRONG fluid
was once put into the system, and that the
WRONG fluid has caused all these seals to "expand."

Here's the bit of plastic as it fits into the large hole in the banjo bolt.

The small outlet holes allow fluid to move, still.
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Assume that the wheel and tire enter (as was my case)
a large pothole.

The wheel "drops" into the hole,
and the shock "extends," drawing
fluid into the shock body.

As the wheel strikes the "exit" of the pothole,
the piston inside the shock moves "down," trying
to slow the movement of the wheel.

As the piston decends, fluid flows out through
the small holes.

You will remember we measured these holes,
and found they were about 13/64" in diameter.

This calculates to about 0.032 square inches of area.
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This time, however, the little bit of plastic is moved to cover
the two small holes by the torrent of high-pressure fluid.

The plastic acts like a reed valve, or the flapper valve in a toilet,
and stops the flow of fluid.
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