1/24/09
Cavallino Classic 2009: III

After a sleepless night, I woke up early to head over to The Breakers in Palm Beach. It was a short drive from Palm Beach Gardens where I was staying, but I wanted to get there as early as the officials would let me. Rumor had it they would not allow any car on the Cavallino Show grounds until 8 am, so I left at about 7:30 to get there first thing. Todd met me, and followed me over in his car.

It was my first time driving Gary’s GTE, and she felt great. The engine started right up and settled into a nice idle. The Vredestein tires felt great on this car, and had great road manners. They gave the car the right stance, filled in the wheel wells nicely, and really complimented the GTE’s handling characteristics. We came a long way with Gary’s car, and turned this GTE into a car that anyone would be proud of.

I parked in “Class 11, 2+2 Ferraris up to 2003.” Gary originally wanted to enter the car in “Class 2, Ferrari 250,” but I didn’t think we would want to be compared to million plus SWBs and GTOs. The 2+2 category was still pretty competitive with some very nice examples. There were two 365GTC/4s, two 365GT 2+2s, and an original unrestored example of a Series I 330GT 2+2 that Peter Markowski brought from VT.

I met Gary and we began the final wipe down of the GTE. I told Gary about the brake light “repair” and asked how he felt about disclosing our “fix.” I explained that the pressure switch failure was just bad luck, and I gave it my best shot at getting the brake lights working. Technically, we had brake lights when the judges asked for them, but disclosing the use of our switch may ingratiate us with the judges as opposed to angering them if they discovered our ploy. We decided honesty was the best course of action, and let the judges decide how to rule.

As the judges took their positions at 9am, I saw Tom Shaughnessy walking towards our car. I joked about him being lost, and that the cars he was looking for to judge were further up field, but I soon realized to my horror that the joke was on me when David Carte came over. If you don’t know these two people, Tom is a well known collector and a purveyor of Vintage Ferrari parts, and David is a Pebble Beach level restorers having won many a top Concours. To round out the judging trio, Brian Hoyt, a well known West Coast Restorer joined Tom and David to judge our car first! I was proud of our car, but knew that these three men were more than capable of spotting the errors in this car that we just didn’t have the time to correct.

When the judging was finished, I was relieved it was over. We were all hopeful for some recognition of our hard work, but I was also trying to prepare myself for coming home empty handed. I was still extremely proud of 3553, and was met with a lot of positive response from all those that came out to support us. Gary and Suzy were happy with their car, and told me that winning an award was not their only goal. My disappointment was confirmed during the Banquet that evening as they announced the class winners. We had some very tough competition, but I feel I gave it my best shot, and I know where I need to improve. I could not have asked for a more critical trio of judges, and I don’t see that as a negative, but the best teaching tool for the future. As I get the score sheets from them in the upcoming months, I know I will have a template to do an even better job for future shows.

A notable well deserved win was by Admiral Phillips with his 500 Mondial. He not only won a Class Platinum, but also the Best Four Cylinder Car and the Coppa Scuderia Best of Show Competition Car! Congratulations to the Admiral and the Phillips family!

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/23/09
Cavallino Classic 2009: II

Friday began with meeting Gary and Suzy with their car to begin detailing the GTE. Todd Helme, the detailer, agreed to meet me at Bill Tracy’s house to spend the day getting the paint the best it could be. I met Todd last year at Bill’s house and was impressed with the work he did on Mark Dempsey’s 365GT 2+2. His website can be found here: http://belladetailing.com/

After a couple hours of cleaning, I left Todd with the car to meet everyone at Moroso. The plan was to meet at the center of the Paddock at 1pm like the previous years, but Moroso has gone through a complete renovation since my last visit. Tomyang.netters were probably scattered throughout the Paddock area looking for the old pavilion. I stood near Parker Hall’s tent hoping to spot some members of my forum, feeling bad about the mix-up. I lunched with the few people I found, and made the best of our little gathering. I promise to make next year’s meeting more organized!

After lunch I had to head back to the house for more work on 3553. Todd had completed the compounding of the car, and the wet sanding of a problem spot in the paint that he was trying to rectify. With the majority of the messy stuff done, I was able to get in and re-polish the wire wheels. With the short drive François and I did in Connecticut, and Gary’s Palm Beach tour the day before, the wheels were getting a little cloudy. Todd brought a complete detailing kit, so I had plenty of supplies to get my job done. Todd even had a box of gloves so I wouldn’t get black fingers from polishing aluminum. Thanks Todd!

As afternoon went into evening, Bill Tracy and his wife Lisa got ready for a dinner party they throw for South Florida Ferrari friends and people coming to Cavallino. The Tracy’s graciously extended their welcome to Tomyang.netters that RSVP’ed, so I was looking forward to seeing some familiar faces. Todd and I still had a ton of work to do even as the dinner guests arrived, but we pushed onwards. It was difficult at times to continue working while party goers stood over us with drinks and comments, but the positive response for the car kept me going. Todd and I both got a chance to join the party during a well deserved break, but we didn’t really finish the final detailing until late into the evening.

Now that the car was presentable, I needed to check one last thing on the list. The brake lights stopped working sometime between leaving Connecticut and arriving in Florida and I needed to find what was going on. One problem we encounter is the big temperature change in climate between NY and FL, so 40+ year old electrics can sometimes get temperamental. After jumping the two wires to check the circuit to the brake lights I found the lights burning bright. I got the sinking realization that the pressure switch on the rear of the master cylinder decided to stop working the night before Cavallino. Bill Tracy came out to see how things were going after the last few people went home. I told him my problem and the impossibility of finding a compatible switch, let alone replacing it at this late hour. Thinking out loud, I said the only way I could get the brake lights to go on without a working pressure switch was to use a toggle switch. Bill Replied, “I’ve got one of those!” That answer got me thinking of how to route a switch by the driver’s seat to turn on the brake lights when the judges asked for brakes. Technically, we would have working brake lights. After finding the switch, pulling the belly pan, and running the wires, I had working brake lights by 11:30pm. Talk about 11th hour repairs!

Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I was pretty busy. If anyone has any pictures of the Tracy party, or proof that I was actually working on 3553, I’ll try to post them on this site!

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/22/09
Cavallino Classic 2009: I

I arrived on Wednesday night and stayed with fellow Ferrari owner Bill Tracy and his wonderfully accommodating family. I was looking forward to the normally warm weather in South Florida after leaving below freezing temperatures here in the Northeast, but was surprised to find chilly “jacket weather.” Even with the cold, however, I was happy to be away from the snow for a few days!

The GTE I’ve been working on for the last couple of months was delivered to the owner at the Breakers the day before and I was anxious to hear what he thought of his car. When I asked if Gary got the car via text message, I was happy get the simple reply, “yes looks great.” It wasn’t until I spoke to Gary in person when he told me the whole story of his delivery. As the truck was being unloaded in front of the Hotel, Gary was joined by Alan Boe, a long time GTE owner, and respected judge. He immediately caught the point deductions we knew we couldn’t fix before Cavallino, but overall thought the car looked good. Hearing that from Alan Boe meant a lot to me.

The Cavallino Weekend starts with track activities at Moroso and a morning seminar. The Seminar at The Breakers is a chance for Ferrari Historians, and serious fans of Ferrari history to discuss the restoration, preservation, and history of Ferrari cars. (Alan Boe is speaking in the mic in this picture.) The featured cars were a perfect 246 Dino, a very nice Lusso, and the story about how one Historian unearthed a rare Alfa race car that may have even been driven by Enzo Ferrari in the 20s!

I had a nice lunch at the Breakers and changed into evening wear for the Jet Aviation Reception at the West Palm Beach Airport. As usual, there was good turn out of people, and Ferrari cars. We arrived in style with Bill’s 348GTS and joined everyone in kicking off the Cavallino weekend. Gary and his wife Suzy arrived with 3553 with smiles, but had a list of teething problems with the GTE. Some of them were simply operational issues like getting the reverse light to work only when the lights are on, but some of them I would have to take a look at before the show. I tried my best to have a good time at the party without stressing too much about getting the car ready for the show. I left Friday open to chase down any last minute details and time for a full buff and polish.

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/19/09
1747: Back to Work

With the 250 GTE 3553 on a truck headed south to Florida for the Cavallino Classic, I got back to work on the PF Coupe 1747 just before heading south myself. The engine compartment is coming together nicely, and even though I’ve been putting a lot of hours in on the GTE, François has been putting a little work here and there on the PF. The carburetors have been rebuilt and all the linkages with the correct finishes were put back on the car.

I worked on installing a new heater control valve and control cable. Having worked on 3553 for so long, I couldn’t help myself and put the correct diamond shaped bend on the end of the cable. We also found four correct Cheney clamps for the top radiator hose. This car might not be heading to a show, but at least it will be factory correct!

Looking back at the “before” picture, the new heater hose will look a lot more at home in a Ferrari engine compartment than the old shut off valve!

Several weeks ago I mentioned that the PF was leaking oil from the steering box and I thought it was from a new seal we already replaced. Well, I was wrong. It was actually leaking from a seal we did not replace, the steering shaft seal. It took some mangling, but I finally got the old seal out. The new seal should work a lot better than the old seal that was rock hard.

The air cleaner came back from the platers, and needed the bottom painted semi-gloss black, but I have a dilemma with the top of the air cleaner.

The top portion of the air cleaner could use some paint as well as it is pretty old and cruddy, but this car is not a show car. The bottom portion of the air cleaner was rusty and had to be plated, but if we leave the top of the air cleaner alone, it won’t match the nicely painted bottom portion. Do we repaint it or not?

On closer inspection, I can see paint bleeding under areas that were previously masked for painting. It soon became obvious that this cover was already painted after leaving the factory, so the paint is not original. I’ll still consult with the owner for him to decide which way to proceed.

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/14/09
3553: The Final Push, Part II

After pulling the splash shield behind the front wheel, I found a couple reasons why the fresh air vent wasn’t closing. The flapper valve has seized, and the pull rod inside the car was broken. The flapper probably seized from disuse after the pull rod broke. We had a new cable mechanism to replace the old one, but I had to thread the end to accept the Ferrari knob. At least now the passenger can regulate the amount of fresh air that comes in!

One of the final things that gets put on a Ferrari is the air cleaner assembly. François spends several different times tuning and checking the carburetors and timing to get the engine to run perfectly, so the air cleaner doesn’t get installed until he’s good and done. My problem was the air cleaner top that came with 3553 had a strange hole that was patched. These air cleaners hardly ever rust, so someone mysteriously cut a hole in the top.

Unfortunately, the repair can still be seen from the top side of the air cleaner, so we substituted the top with a nicer one we had at the shop.

Another final detail was to install the front plate. Gary, the owner had custom plates made for the car when we show her on the lawn at The Breakers.

I fabricated an aluminum frame for the plate that’s slightly larger. Mounting screws were secured, and the edges of the aluminum were polished. It’s subtle, but does the job!

I’ve been studying the 3553, trying to find things I may have missed on this car, and found something! I forgot to make the caps for the window cranks! These were missing, and I forgot to make a note of this several months ago when I first noticed this, but luckily I had a plan.

I took a piece of aluminum and hammered some dimples with a ball peen hammer. I then traced circles around the dimples that were the size of the window crank knob and cut them out.

After getting discs to fit perfectly in the window crank knobs, I sanded smooth the surface, and painted the pieces. With a coat of black gloss paint, and some glue, these discs will trim out the window crank knobs nicely.

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/13/09
The Final Push for 3553, Part One

This was the last full week before we had to send the car to South Florida for the Cavallino Classic. The list of to-dos were getting shorter, but we were still pretty busy. On my last entry, I forgot to photograph the finished brake reservoir cap, so here it is. Strike that off the list!

The peeling paint was addressed, and I think the repair was successful. We blended the paint so it would match what was painted on the rest of the under hood area.

What the heck is this you ask? It’s the oil pan! As I went to drain the oil on this car, I found an incorrect drain plug with some slivers of aluminum around it! This was not a comforting sight, and a stripped oil pan drain plug was confirmed when I went to tighten the plug. These aluminum pans are very susceptible to stripping, and we had to pull the pan and rethread the pan plug hole. Luckily, this is one of the only repairs on a Vintage Ferrari that is straight forward. The bottom half of the oil pan drops straight down after unbolting all the nuts. We also lucked out by having an oil pan gasket in stock. Even though this repair only set us back a couple of hours, it was not what I wanted to do with only a few days left before our deadline!

With new oil, and Baldwin Filters installed, the car was ready for a test drive!

It’s been very cold here in the Northeast this past couple of days, and there was a fresh four inches of snow on the ground from earlier in the week, but the roads were clear and dry. With snow forecast in the evening, we took our window of opportunity to drive this GTE.

As François drove, I checked all the gauges from the passenger seat. I started a mental list of little things we still needed to address. My life has been all about making lists and crossing the items off as I completed them. As one list got shorter, this drive was adding more things to the list! I was happy to feel the overdrive kicking in on command, and the Ammeter flicking in the right direction. Electrical gremlins often arise in cars that sit for long periods of time, and I was happy to see nothing major to fix. One problem I had to address was the large draft of fresh air coming in from the passenger side foot well. The control knob was not moving, so I had to endure the freezing cold air on my ankles until we got back to the shop!

The engine oil and water temperature gauges barely moved off their pegs because it was so cold, but the car performed well. Once we got her back inside, I got back to crossing off the items on the list!

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/9/09
3553: Brake Fluid Cap and Under hood Paint

There are still a bunch of little things to do on the GTE before it gets sent down for the Cavallino Show in about a week, and one of them was to work on the brake reservoir cap. We sent the cap out for nickel plating, but after they sand blasted the part, they found the thin top cover was pretty rusty. It trapped a lot of moisture along with some old brake fluid, so I decided to carefully cut the piece off and replace it with a new cover. The original cover was crimped in place with a retaining ring, but a new one would have to be secured in a different manner. After removing the old piece, cleaning off the rust, and cutting a new disc to fit perfectly on the cap, I glued the piece to the cap with some epoxy. The only thing I forgot to do was to photograph the finished product!

About a week ago while I was carefully looking over the car for problems or mistakes that could cause the judges to take points away at Cavallino, I noticed a problem with the under hood paint. The only way to address the issue was to remove the hood for better access.

There was an adhesion problem with the paint that was applied by a previous shop and it was getting worse with each passing week. It looked like the another layer of paint was sprayed on the original paint without a primer coat, and sections of it were flaking off. The second coat of paint was pretty thick, so the parts that weren’t sticking were coming off in sheets. The right way to fix this problem was to strip all the paint off the under hood section to bare aluminum, and start from scratch, but there just wasn’t enough time to do this with the delivery date on this car in a week.

I scraped as much of the loose paint as I could and stopped at a seam that I hoped would hide well. The rest of the area was sanded to a smooth surface, and painted. Let’s hope there are no more last minute fires to put out!

Alvin did a spectacular job polishing the Borranis despite his sore fingers from getting between the spokes!

New tires were mounted and balanced. These are Vredestein “Sprint Classics,” and I’ll be curious to see how they feel on this GTE. Most Ferrari shows allow any type of tire as long as they are in the original size, but very few modern tires come in the original sizes. The correct size for this car was 185-15. There was no number for the aspect ratio because before the late 1960s, the sidewalls were standardized to about an 80 series tire. Finding a 185-80-15 is near impossible, so if you want a modern tire, you’ll have to juggle some of the numbers. One of the caveats is to be careful a different size does not lower the car any more than stock. Ferrari exhausts are pretty low, even with a stock size tire. Classic reproductions in the correct sizes are available, but because of their limited supply, high cost, and old technology, we chose the Vredesteins. I hope to get a full report on how these tires perform from Gary after he drives the car in Florida.

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/6/09
3553: Engine Compartment Detailing

Most of the pieces from the platers have returned, so we’ve been installing all of them on the car. New fuel lines, with the freshly plated fittings were installed, along with black oxide carburetor nuts. The choke linkages were also plated along with the throttle linkages and fuel rail. In the upper left corner of the picture, you can see the brake booster is done and detailed with the correct sticker from Kilimanjaro Designs. I’ve been slowly bleeding the brake system over the past couple weeks to get all the bubbles out of the system.

This shot shows a ton of little details from the hood latch, coils, throttle linkage, and new tar top reproduction battery. Correct battery terminals were soldered in place, a battery hold down was fabricated and painted,  and the “Baroclem” sticker affixed to the side of the battery. What’s left to do for this area? I need two more knurled nuts for the fuse panel, and we’re waiting for the correct vacuum hose from Mike Dunn. I’m also painting the air cleaner semi gloss black leaving the nickel plated center alone.

The horn assembly is just about done. The flash from the camera does not do the finish of the horns justice as there is a translucency that does not reproduce in this picture. All that is left is a final adjustment of the trumpets against the diaphragms to tune the sound of the horns.

3553 was missing one of its oil filler/breather pipes. On early 250 outside plug engines these pipes come out of the oil pan and are held in place with a  cad plated bracket. François fabricated a new pipe and bracket, but we’re waiting for the plater to finish so we can finish the installation. With the new filler, we’ll change the oil and filters before 3553 heads down to Florida.

The aluminum door sill plates were polished and installed. The driver’s side pieces went back in without much problem, but the right side was not so easy. With the new side panels covered in leather, not all the pieces fit back together the same way, so I had to rework some of the leather covered panels, along with trim some of the door sill plates for a better fit. I knew exactly what to do because I had to hand fit these pieces the same way with my car when I put everything back together on my 330 America years ago.

Just a reminder, I’m looking for a new Vintage Ferrari Project. If you have, or know of a restoration project, please let me know. It would be great to restore another car on this website! My E-mail.

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1/5/09
Thanks for Pledging!

Happy New Year, and thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s pledge drive. Here’s a list of people who contributed, and should be thanked by all of us in supporting what this site has to offer.  If your name was overlooked, I apologize in advance, and will resolve the problem as soon as possible. Now let’s see what the 10th year of tomyang.net has to offer!

Randall Palmer
Ed Morris
John Vardanian
William Taylor
Anthony Mongillo
John Viveiros
Mike Wegener
Josh Wilmes
John Asp
David Hodge
Tom Wilson
Richard Garre
Larry Samuel Smith
David Eichenbaum
Luke Kowalski
Lee Stikeleather
Ian Levy
Morten Kragh-Mortensen
Andrew-CSO
Lowell Brown
John Barker
Peter Polasek
Thomas Carlin
Jim McNeil
Michael Greenspan
Sam Hollowell
Scott Shaw
Mark Valsi
Tom Treue
Mike Meehan
Dan Reese
Gran Turismo Motors
Steve Metzler
Mark Dempsey
Frank Botti
Kelly LaVelle Andrew Stevens
Parker Hall
David Crozer
Cory Youngberg
Mark Travers
Drew Altemara
Charles Rahm
Al Cartlidge
Roger Hoffman
Benjamin Galdston
James Walker
John Pergolizzi
Taro Ohno
Dirk Van Roost
Michael Clark
Jim Wickstead
Kerry Chesbro
Owen Callahan
Tom Kizer

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