Real Fiero Tech

Well, being steel bodied will be better for removing the paint, although harder to seal to prevent rust. That's going to be a big job for you or whoever tackles it. I did a little reading this morning about the crazing, seems like the paint Ferrari used is very "hard" and a bitch to remove, unlike modern urethane. Getting the old paint off of trim and tight areas around the door... fun times ahead.

That last picture of the dents is wild. Maybe they used that tube for leverage when removing the drivetrain?

I don't know... I haven't looked the body over thoroughly enough yet to be confident I've found all the tell-tales.

I don't doubt Ferrari paint is good for the era. Ferrari does a lot of things right. Even now the doors close with a Mercedes-like "thunk".

My plans are to get it running and get the swap mostly complete, then tear it back down to have the body dip stripped & e-coated.

It's not that the paint is or isn't good. It's just that the technology at that time was like baking a clay pot. You don't just sand it off and apply new paint, you have to smother it in love and sweat to get the old cracking clay pot off.

So... this happened:





But then this happened:



So this had to happen:



But all that led to this happening:

That's what happens when you tow an old car with a truck older than it is.

VGU-9060

I do appreciate that the number of fucks you give is a function that approaches zero.

Emc209i wrote:That's what happens when you tow an old car with a truck older than it is.

VGU-9060

The truck's actually a 1990. It has a Caddy 500, 4L80E and 14 bolt full floater with 3.23's. Loooooong legs on the highway and generally a great tow vehicle. It initially gave symptoms of a head gasket failure, but we traced it to my dad's change of oil filters giving problems with oil flow... may have lunched the bottom end.

I dunno how many more serious judgement errors I can watch him make before I have to pull his license. "WTF do you mean you used a 13 micron hydraulic filter for your engine oil?"

My friend's '88 Bronco is actually a pretty good tow vehicle... 351, C6, 8.8 w/ 3.55's. The shorter wheel base made it a little less stable under hard braking, and the steering gear needed to be adjusted. It was much better once we took care of that adjustment.

CincinnatiFiero wrote:I do appreciate that the number of fucks you give is a function that approaches zero.

Uhh... thanks?

How so?

Ah, that sucks.

The Dark Side of Will wrote:

CincinnatiFiero wrote:I do appreciate that the number of fucks you give is a function that approaches zero.

Uhh... thanks?

How so?

Given the value of 308s anymore, you're surely the only person using a tow rig that looks like that to haul one around.

If I had a 40 foot enclosed trailer with goose neck, generator and mobile workshop and a crew cab dually to tow it, I'd have used that.

Introductions are in order:



How DO you do?
How do YOU do?

I noticed this about the roof latches:

Left:


More Left:


Right:


When the left one is latched, the right one is off by the almost width of the slot. I'm not sure if this is famous late '70's Ferrari build quality or another indicator that the car's been smacked around.

CincinnatiFiero wrote: Given the value of 308s anymore, you're surely the only person using a tow rig that looks like that to haul one around.

My dad and uncle put the trailer together about the same time Enzo was putting my car together. It uses the air suspension from a GMC Motorhome ("Travel-All" in some circles) and rides VERY well with quickly adjustable ride height, and can kneel almost to the ground to aid loading/unloading. It has mechanical drum brakes operated by tongue compression.

the body on that thing needs some work.

That is correct.

The decklid is not latched in that photo. The edges line up when it is.

The Dark Side of Will wrote:

CincinnatiFiero wrote: Given the value of 308s anymore, you're surely the only person using a tow rig that looks like that to haul one around.

My dad and uncle put the trailer together about the same time Enzo was putting my car together. It uses the air suspension from a GMC Motorhome ("Travel-All" in some circles) and rides VERY well with quickly adjustable ride height, and can kneel almost to the ground to aid loading/unloading. It has mechanical drum brakes operated by tongue compression.

I didn't word that well, I actually think its really cool. You and your dad (and presumably uncle) are engineers and are obviously very function over form. The type of people I am around in the classic/exotic euro car world are not like that at all. Typically the rigs are worth more than the 6 figure cars they haul somehow. Form is the most important, and money buys the function. Your setup is quite a bit more interesting.

I totally believe that trailer is incredibly functional, I was curious about those airbags. Are they surge brakes or some other form of mechanical?

CincinnatiFiero wrote:

The Dark Side of Will wrote:

CincinnatiFiero wrote: Given the value of 308s anymore, you're surely the only person using a tow rig that looks like that to haul one around.

My dad and uncle put the trailer together about the same time Enzo was putting my car together. It uses the air suspension from a GMC Motorhome ("Travel-All" in some circles) and rides VERY well with quickly adjustable ride height, and can kneel almost to the ground to aid loading/unloading. It has mechanical drum brakes operated by tongue compression.

I didn't word that well, I actually think its really cool. You and your dad (and presumably uncle) are engineers and are obviously very function over form. The type of people I am around in the classic/exotic euro car world are not like that at all. Typically the rigs are worth more than the 6 figure cars they haul somehow. Form is the most important, and money buys the function. Your setup is quite a bit more interesting.

I totally believe that trailer is incredibly functional, I was curious about those airbags. Are they surge brakes or some other form of mechanical?

We're still backwoods hicks compared to you rich city slickers.

The brake system is a *mechanical* surge brake setup... nothing hydraulic, nothing electric, dirt simple, strangely reliable... and it works. The only real design parameter is the stiffness of the return spring in the tongue and the only oddball maintenance is adjusting the turnbuckles to reset the cable tension when replacing the shoes. I don't know why such a setup isn't used more commonly... probably idiotic DOT regs. There are some circumstances in stop/go traffic that can cause the brakes to oscillate, but that could be fixed by installing a damper in parallel with the return spring. That situation occurs so rarely that we just haven't needed to do it.

Inspiration.
The extreme bling on the cam covers is growing on me.

Pictorial disassembly of a 348 transaxle for the purpose of changing the drop gear ratio shows how insanely complex these units are:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/348-35 ... ratio.html

I was also stunned that the lower drop gear is basically the VERY FIRST thing that goes into the gearbox on initial assembly. I would have thought that it would be more like a quick change rear in that the drop gears could be swapped out quickly/easily.

Been thinking about how I'd like to deal with various aspects of the swap.

For one thing, the parking brake cables go through a weird pulley arrangement that sits right behind the original powertrain, but will interfere with the 348/355 style clutch housing.
The 308 uses dual action two piston rear calipers.

https://www.ricambiamerica.com/car-diag ... ntrol.html

[img]https://www.ricambiamerica.com/media/ca ... VR_031.jpg[/img]

The 328, 348 and 355 use drum-in-hat parking brakes, while the 360 went back to dual action calipers

328 parking brake (1985):
https://www.ricambiamerica.com/car-diag ... ntrol.html

[img]https://www.ricambiamerica.com/media/ca ... 85_034.jpg[/img]

There's a 1988 parts list as well, but the diagram looks the same.

348 parking brake (1989-1992):
https://www.ricambiamerica.com/car-diag ... ntrol.html

[img]https://www.ricambiamerica.com/media/ca ... 93_034.jpg[/img]

The later 348 group looks the same

355 parking brake (M2.7):
https://www.ricambiamerica.com/car-diag ... ntrol.html

[img]https://www.ricambiamerica.com/media/ca ... 527_38.jpg[/img]

Would it be sacrilege to use the modern GM drum-in-hat parking brake? That's *MUCH* simpler to implement than the built-up-from-individual-parts system that Ferrari and older BMW's use.

I don't think the GM brake would be sacrilege, you're building a "restomod", you're not restoring a ferrari. that being said, I'm pretty sure willwood makes a parking brake caliper. The caliper is separate from the hydraulic one, so there is added weight and possibly complexity, but would it weigh as much as the GM in hat drum? maybe, maybe not.

http://www.wilwood.com/Calipers/Caliper ... Mechanical

they also have dual action calipers like the fiero had stock, but they're single piston and probably too boring for what you're building...