1/20/10
Road Trip To Cavallino: GA to FL
I woke the next morning and checked my forum to find several messages
of support and notes of encouragement to not give up so easily. Some
good ideas were suggested, and I went outside to see what I could do.
The flexible rubber hose to the front right brake line had burned
through, so there was no way that caliper could be used. The left
caliper seemed fine, so I needed to stop brake fluid from reaching the
bad caliper as some of my friends from the Internet had suggested. The
plan was to block off the line at the fitting before the flex
hose. I knew there was a ball bearing used in the Dunlop
caliper under the bleeder screw, but found it to be too large for the
fitting to catch the threads. I asked Rich, Tom, and Mark to think
about what else we could used inside the brake line to block off the
fluid. As we put our heads together, I thought about my knock off
hammer!
I cut a small hunk of lead off my hammer and fashioned a small slug to
fit inside the fitting to plug up the steel line leading to the bad
rubber hose. As the brake fitting was tightened down, the lead did a
perfect job blocking the brake fluid off. I took the car down the
street and found I at least had three brakes working. We saddled up,
and headed out!
We decided to have Mark lead in his 365GT 2+2 with me following at a
safe distance. Rich rode with Tom Kizer and we transferred all the
extra weight out of my car into the other two Ferraris so I could stop
the car as efficiently as possible. I needed all the help I could get
considering any amount of braking woudl send my car shooting towards
the left side of the road! I told Mark that if he had to stop suddenly
for any reason to stay straight becasue I would be coming through
either the right or left side!
As we got closer to our destination we got faster and faster, reaching
speeds over 65mph. I was on edge the whole time planning an escape
route every second of the way. The greatest irony was when we were
passed by a fairly new Ferrari with New Jersey plates being towed down
I95 while I was limping down the highway to Palm Beach in a 47 year old
car with three working brakes!
70 miles outside of North Palm Beach, the fuel pump began acting up. We
fiddled with different techniques and assessed out options. We were so
close to making it, we could taste it. Mark peeked under the car and he
found the fuel pump would click when he touched the cap lightly. After
moving things aroiund a little, we found the sweet spot where the fuel
pump would keep running. With the engine finally running, we jumped
back in our cars and headed out.
It was such a relief to finally get to Bill Tracy's house in North Palm
Beach. I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the rest of the
weekend, but at least we were safe in Bill's garage.
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