2/28/08
Mondial, the Four Cylinder Variety
Admiral Robert Phillips and I have been corresponding about his Series
II 500 Mondial for several years. An
entry in the "Owner's Section" tells part of this great story. He's
currently preparing the car to show at Pebble Beach and there's, as
always a lot of work to be done!
Here was a familiar sight to me: Ferrari Drum Brakes. The Mondial's
brakes differ slightly to the PF Coupe I was working on as it has alloy
brake shoes to save weight.
Robert is restoring the car to the condition when it entered the 1955
Grand Prix of Venezuela where it won in its class, so it's not going to
be restored beyond what this car was like when it was raced. There is a
trend to stop over restoring some of these cars, and Robert is trying
his best to preserve some of the history and not obliterate its past.
On a recent dialog with Robert, we were discussing how to install the
valve springs on this large four cylinder engine. There wasn't as much
trouble installing these valves the last two times in the 60s, but
Robert was having some trouble today. I asked François if he had
any advice to add, and he described a home made spring compressor that
would help get the over sized and highly tensioned springs in place.
François showed me the original Ferrari-issue spring compressor
used for the early V-12 cars, but you can see from the bent handle, and
the extra bracing brazed in place, the original tool left a lot to be
desired. You can imagine how useless this tool would have been with the
even stronger springs of the four cylinder engine.
The early Lampredi designed engines used "Mouse trap," or "clothes
pin," type springs to tension the valves. A pair of them needed to be
swung into place and pressed down over the valve stem before the keeper
was installed. Using advice from vintage Ferrari mechanics from all
over the country, a plan was hatched. More hands and space would have
been nice, but Robert made a compressor tool to help him accomplish the
task.
With the help of his son, Bryan, and Michael Bayer, they got the top
end of the 2 liter four cylinder engine assembled. What still baffles
Robert however, is how he managed to so all this in the 60s without all
this extra help. My thought was a young Lieutenant has much more
strength than the cunning of an older Admiral!
As this car goes together, I'm always sad to watch all the neat
mechanical stuff hidden away. Luckily, Robert's been sending me
pictures, and this one is looking up the cylinder bore at the valves
and dual spark plug holes. When Lampredi designed this engine, he was
concerned with head gasket sealing, so the head was cast with
provisions to screw each cylinder into the head.
The bottom of each cylinder was then sealed to the lower block with
O-rings for the water passages. With better materials, head gaskets
work a little better today (most of the time), so this design was
abandoned, but in its time, these engines won a lot of races without
head gasket failures!
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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