The door and trunk locks came back from the chrome plater and I needed to make the trip to the locksmith to reinstall the tumblers. My plater carefully masked off the threads so plating would not interfere with putting everything back together. We also checked to make sure the push button on the trunk lock worked smoothly.

The shifter handle was greased and reassembled. My plater knows not to put too much plating on the two ball sockets at the bottom of the shifter because these clearances are crucial to snap back in the nylon bushing and the way it fits in the shifter pivot.

Even with all this attention, I still have to chase some of the threads on the plated pieces to make sure the screws go back in smoothly. With the tail light assemblies back from the plater, I could fit the new reproduction lenses to the tail lights. They too needed some filing to fit perfectly.

I also needed to install the light sockets on the tail light assemblies that were removed for plating.

I have a small arbor press that lives under my workbench at home that I take out just for this job. I use sockets to expand the tabs back into place and carefully press them the rest of the way with the press. I was thinking I should make a special tool for this preceedure on my lathe, but maybe next time!

When I disassembled the 275GTB/4 I made a note that I would have to fix a broken fastener on the left door frame.

I tried to drill it out with a left handed drill bit, but ended up drilling out the bolt and retapping the hole.

All done, and onto the next project.

In the last push to get all the details correct, I found myself making last minute runs to the plater with miscellaneous parts. These spring clips go on various hoses in the engine compartment, and we had a box of them, but they were the wrong color. They needed to be finished in black oxide, and luckily my “black oxide guy” turned them around in one day.

As the doors were going back together, I took a closer look at the door panels. The bottom strip of aluminum trim was looking a little shabby.

Before installing the door panels, I had to take the aluminum trim put to clean and polish them, I took out some of the scratches, and used a combination of a buffing wheel and hand polishing to bring some life back to these panels.

The right door was now complete, and the left door is next!

With a litte more than a week to go on my Annual Pledge Drive, it’s almost over! Your contribution is greatly appreciated. The biggest expense this year was having the website updated and brought into the modern world, capable of serving multiple platforms like mobile devices and tablets. So far the response has been positive and I hope you have all gotten used to the new format. Another change in the website was the sizing of the photos. You should be able to see much more detail of the restorations, and they will scale up or down depending on which device you use to look at this site. There is one photo in this post that was the old size, and you really can see the change to the larger size! The larger images will take more space on my server, and will cost more as you can imagine storing the thousands of pictures this site has. Your donations off set some of the costs to keep the site up to date and growing.

Thanks to everyone who contributed so far. It’s nice to know you appreciate what this site gives to you.

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

The negative battery terminal on the 275GTB/4 was incorrect, and I’ve been trying to find a new one. Reproduction brass cable ends for 250 series cars are available, but the lead ends are harder to find. I spoke to the guys at Motion Products, and they decided to try reproducing the end themselves. They just received a samples of a raw casting, and were in the process of approving a run for more when I called them looking for the same thing. Unfortunately, it will probably be several weeks before they have finished examples, but I asked what they were going to do with the sample? Desperate for a correct battery cable end for the Concours in January, I asked Dan if he wouldn’t mind selling me the raw sample. Within a few days, I got the negative battery end in my hands. I’ll do the rest of the machining and finishing of this part, but I will hopefully have a finished product by the show! Thanks Motion Products!

We’re just about half way through with the annual tomyang.net pledge drive. Your donations help keep this website going and also help fund some of the events I hold around the country. I plan on doing more of them in 2015 and look forward to see you there!

Thanks to everyone who contributed so far. It’s nice to know you appreciate what this site gives to you.

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

I picked up the first batch of plating that I sent out for the 275GTB/4. The plater I use does a great job on the cadmium plating and this batch is no different. It’s taken me a while of trial and error to find a good guy. Most places that do industrial cad plating don’t take the time to make sure the pieces are clean enough to take a good plating. They’re used to doing large batches of new fasteners and don’t have the patience or care to plate old pieces of steel that require more attention.

I immediately got to work installing some of the freshly plated pieces on to the engine.

The brake parts were ready to go back together after all the various parts were rebuilt, resleeved, and replated.

The hardest part of putting the booster back in place was getting the clevis pin installed along with the washer and cotter pin. Access was not easy!

Speaking of access, one nut on the booster can only be accessed behind the fender, and while I had the splash shield removed, I noticed a bunch of dirt accumulating inside the fender. Cleaning this out will avoid future rust problems as this dirt will trap moisture and eventually rust out the rocker panel.

I ordered new tail light lenses as the old ones were cracked and discolored.

I started to assemble the coil over shocks and found the new rubber boots covered with a white talcum powder residue. This release agent was pretty well stuck to the rubber, and needed to be washed off.

All the parts were laid out and ready for reassembly.

The devil is in the details, and a big score this week was finding a supplier for the red horn hose. The hose on this 275GTB/4 was a clear PVC hose found at any hardware store, but not correct for the FIAMM horns.

This hose is well hidden between the grille and the radiator, but an eagle-eyed judge will be looking for these small details. Lucky for us, we’re ready for them!

I made good progress this week putting all the parts back on the car, but it almost seemed a shame to put such pretty parts back in places that are not easily seen. It’s a good thing I have pictures of the parts to admire whenever I want!

I took a road trip to Wilmington Massachusetts to see another Ferrari 275GTB/4. This car was a recent Platinum winner at Cavallino, and the owner generously allowed me to go and see it to take some notes and answer some questions I had on a 275GTB/4 I was preparing for the same show in January next year.

The car was being stored at Volante Classics, and Roberto at Volante took some time to show me the car.

I took a bunch of pictures and tried my best to see all that I needed to see on this low mileage car without over staying my welcome!

Luckily I didn’t see anything that was completely different than what I was doing on the car back at my shop, so it was reassuring to see I was on the right track

We’re just a week into the annual Pledge Drive and I want to thank everyone who already contributed.

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

The spark plug tubes on the PF Cabriolet we have at the shop are in pretty bad shape. The previous owner squeezed 8 mm spark plug wires into a space that normally accomodates 7 mm wire. I’m not sure of the benefits in using thicker wire was worth the butchering needed to get them to fit.

Getting the old wires was no easy task as they were really jammed in there, but the worst part was they cut the holes wider for the larger wire where it exitied the tube. The hole on the right was one of only a couple original sized holes that were left undamaged. Most of the holes were crudely cut open as you see on the left. I’d like to try and save this tube so we’ll see if our metal fabricators can work their magic and repair these holes. At some point, it may be cheaper to make new spark plug tubes, but saving original parts would one goal.

The fresh air tubes on this car will need replacing. A real eye sore in the engine compartment is a home made fresh air tube made from some kind of fire retardant material that was painted black. Not only did it look like a “shade tree mechanic” repair, if it was made from a carcinogenic material, I wouldn’t have used this stuff to deliver fresh air into the passenger compartment!

The passenger side of the engine compartment has a hose that is more correct for these cars, but it was showing its age with some holes and splits. For Pininfariana built cars, the fresh air hose should look like this cloth wrapped wire reinforced hose, while Scaglietti built cars have the gray ribbed paper hose you see on Lussos.

The third tube I had to handle this week was as fuel filler neck on the 275GTB/4. As I was going over the detailing on this car, I took a closer look at the filler neck to make sure the right hose clamps were installed. What I found was something that needed more attention than the details of the concours correct hose clamp.

The fuel filler neck was pretty rotted, and must have been leaking. The filler is located in the trunk of the car, and fumes if not fuel must have been getting into the trunk area.

You can see from the rot that the rubber in the fuel hose was disintergrating from the exposure to the fuel. I’m glad we caught this before this leak caused bigger problems.

The Pledge Drive continues and I want to thank all those who found the time and commitment to show their support for this site and the community.

One of the changes with the website is the sizing of the photos to work on all the various platforms like the i-pad and smart phones. I increased the size of the photos so they can be viewed with better resolutions on a computer, but still made this site easier to read on a mobile app. Larger pictures means more space on my server to host such a large amount of data and your donations help control the rising costs. Thanks again for your donations!

It’s time for the annual Pledge Drive for 2014. This pledge drive only happens once a year for the month of December, and I ask you to consider how you benefit from this website and how it helps inform and entertain you throughout the year.

Here are some of the happenings this past year:

January always has a trip to Cavallino in Palm Beach Florida. We showed Mark’s 365GT 2+2, and he won his second Platinum Award with this car. It was a long hard won victory to finally get the Top Award in this class at this prestigious event, and I was proud to play a part in it.

Another 365GT 2+2 arrived at the shop the next month, and it was in a little rougher shape than Mark’s 365, but I was looking forward to the challenge of getting her back up to her former glory. The wouldn’t start, there was a fuel leak from the tank, the electrics were all in disarray, and that was just what we initially found.

Then there were some surprises like the 2X4 holding up the right window instead of a regulator!

We also delivered a 400GT to a new owner after we had some work done with the interior.

Engine rebuilds continued in the shop as we tried to keep with with demands and the work from all the vendors.

In between the work, I flew to Basel Switzerland to inspect a GTE that was for sale. We came home empty handed, but I think the inspection saved my client a lot of money in a project that may need to wait for someone else more ambitious.

May was the time for my annual Radcliffe/Tomyang.net Spring party in Maryland. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 330GT with my co-host Richard Garre (left) and David Wheeler (right).

I joined my race  buddies with Team Punisher for a Chump Car Race  at Watkins Glen. It’s low budget racing at its finest!

Work continued at the shop with replacing rusty brake pistons.

We also had a 365GTC/4 that was finishing up for delivery.

A trip to Los Angeles took advantage with a party at Tom Wilson’s house to invite some Vintage Ferrari enthusiasts together for some food and drinks. The highlight was to meet Ed Niles, an long time Vintage Ferrari collector and historian.

August found the car world all abuzz with the auction of a 250GTO. The final auction result was $38 million, and new world record!

Mark and I set our own little World Record on the other side of the Bonhams tent with his double Platinum winning 365GT 2+2 when it crossed the auction block at nearly $325K!

Back at the shop, I had to tend to a 512BBi major service. This big lump was pulled out of the car to change the belts, bearings, seals, and a whole host of might-as-wells while the engine was out of the car.

The end of September brought a 275GTB/4 into the shop to detail for Cavallino. January seemed far away as the last days of summer were still here, but I knew better. I started stripping all the pieces that needed attention with the hope and determination to get it all done in time.

The Monterey Auctions also brought new cars to our shop as some of our customers won bids on cars for sale. These newly purchased cars started arriving a month or so after the sales and this SI PF Cab was a nice survivor.

I hosted a fun Fall Party at Michael Greenspan’s house in CT.

Sorted out some issues on a Europa that’s also headed to Cavallino.

The biggest change this past year was the long awaited update and re-design of tomyang.net. After 15 years of running my website with a design created by my nephew it was time for something new! The Internet has changed a lot in the past 15 years, and it was time to follow these changes with a new website. Even though I was blogging before there were such things as blogs, migrating the old site onto a new format with some easier navigation was much needed. I sought out professional help to make this transition easier, and the people at http://blkdiamond.com/ were perfect in understanding my needs and goals. I believe the cost of this redesign was well worth it, and I hope you agree.

Please show me your appreciation for this website, and the community it serves and hosts. Thank you and I look forward to another year!

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

 

Thanks!