It’s been a long time coming but our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT is now pretty much ready to be photographed and filmed before going live on the Bridge Classic Cars Competitions website.
After Jonn took the car out for a road test, he came back to the workshop and rectified a couple of minor issues such as some rattling coming from the door panels. Once the door panels were refitted, some tracking issues were rectified.
Jonn has continued his work preparing our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT. Here are his notes on his latest round of work:
Unwrap new calipers and check. Fit new caliper to nearside but won’t bolt up. Found bolts too large to pass through caliper mountings. Grind out holes a minimal amount and fit caliper to nearside front. Make new brake pipes from flexu hoses to caliper. Fit and secure. Repeat process for offside.
Fit pipes from flexis to caliper and secure. Bleed brakes and top up fluid. Check for leaks.
Jonn has been spending some time looking at the heater valve of our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT.
Here are his notes:
Carry out pressure test on cooling system. Attend to minor leaks found. System now sealed. Drain coolant. Strip and remove heater valve from under scuttle panel. Valve unserviceable. Strip and remove heater control from centre console. Found lever control broken. Repair and leave to go off. Refit control to centre console and secure. Clear area. Remove offside distributor cap to aid access to broken points wire. Crimpmon new terminal and connect and secure. Refit distributor cap. Raise in air and apply sealer to exhaust front pipes.
Jonn has continued his work on our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT. Here are his notes on what he has been doing:
Start pr3parations for refitting centre console and switches. Tidy wiring and fit new gear selector light. Bulb not working g. Replace bulb and test holder 9ff the car and works fine. Refit. Check fuses and power supply to bulb, no power. All fuses ok spin all fuses in holders and retry. Light works now. Dash lights in cluster appear to not be working but all ok after playing with rheostat. Fit battery from under my bench for now for testing and reassembly purposes. Battery may be physically to big to be a permanent fixture.
Continue to sort and tidy wiring under centre console. Reconnect bulb and holder for ashtray but bulb blown and none in stock. Mount controls to centre console wooden panel. Swap,parts fromnew choke control lever and mount. Start to fit choke cables. Found new piece of cable to use as second cable. Route and mount to,offside bank of carbs and route cable from centre console to nearside bank of carbs. Require bulb so can’t fit centre console yet.
Centre console ready to fit. With John’s help start making all cable connections to centre console. Fit all 4 cables for choke, heater, and both side direction controls for heater. Temperature valve seized but stuck in hot position. Connect all switches and test. All works. Finish fitting centre console and fix in position as best as I can. Continue with ch9ke able set up. Start to make bracket for second choke cable.
Jonn has continued fitting the exhaust to our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT.
He then sealed up and secured both offside downpipes to the front pipe flanges. He fitted and sealed up both small bypass pipes. The rear sections are the same size as the centre sections so Jonn can’t fit them at this point.
A pipe has been ordered to sleeve all 4 pipes at the rear.
Jonn mounted the new transmission oil cooler. He mounted the pipes and marked their position. He then remounted and secured the cooler. Then, he shaped and bent the oil cooler pipe from the gearbox to the oil cooler at the front.
Here are Jonns notes on the repairs he has been making to our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT:
Rebuild door handle and test. Remove striker/ actuator i made and bend slightly and refit. Seems to be ok but lock stiff and key nearly broken. Stop and wait for new keys to arrive. Investigate passengers seat back insecure. Found inner hook for relaesing seat back been wired 8n open position. Cable inside seat broken. Make small bracket to fit to hook so able to lift manually. Fit and paint black. Coolant leaks. Start with corroded jubilee clips on heater pipe. Remove pipe and found pipe split badly, and connector corroded. Remove connector and clean. Use JB weld chemical metal to repair holes on connector and leave to set. Clean mating surfaces and make gasket for connector.
Strip and remove exhaust system. Cut of rear sections and cut and remove what’s left in rear sections. Re rivet heatshiels to floor both sides. Fit new P clip to secure offside handbrake cable. Fit water connector to rear of head and leave to go off overnight.
Fit coolant hose to heater. Pressurise system and trace leaks. Rad hoses leaking and all jubilee clips corroded and won’t tighten. Remove rad hoses and inline thermostat. Thermostat broken inside housing. Clean all pipe connections. Wash down front of engine waterpump area. Fit new hoses that we had in stock and order new thermostat and hoses we don’t have. Rek9ve offside front wheel and strip and remove brake flexi hoses fro replacement. Fit 2 x new hoses to offside front and secure.
Bleed offside front brake and pressure check for leaks, ok. Top up brake fluid. Refit wheel. Attend to horn not working. Connector missing inside steering wheel. Remove steering wheel and work out way to make it work. Drill out rivet from connector behind steering wheel. Fit wire andfeed through steering wheel. Tighten steering wheel and fit spade terminal to wire and connect to centre push. Fit centre and test, ok.
New keys arrived so refit nearside door handle and test lock with key. Stiff to operate but does work now. Secure handle in door.
Refit door handle fully and lubricate mechanism. Test functions all ok. Refit door panel.
Fit new coolant hoses and secure. Vacuum system and check for loss of vacuum. Fill system with new anti freeze mix. Attend to oil leak. Trace to gearbox cooler pipes fractured. All pipes seized and while attempting to remove direct from cooler, cooler split. Cut off pipes and remove system complete. Remove broken cotton reel mounts.
Technician Jonn has continued his work on our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT. Here are his notes:
Continue repairs. Fit new boot cable and handle. Thread cable through outer and measure. Remove inner cable and handle and compare to old cable. New cable approx 3 foot shorter so will have to join cable in boot to activate lock release. Cut old outer to length and retread inner cable. Make bracket to mount rear portion of cable. Drill out and mock up to check.
Cable hard to pull and bracket not strong enough. Remake bracket from thicker steel and mount in place. Rear cable section is a solid able and has kinks in inner so this may be reason for stiff operation. Adjust length of new cable.
Christian has been repairing the stone guards on our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT.
Classic car technician Jonn has been inspecting our 1979 Ferrari 400 GT and has started making some of the repairs it requires.
Jonn stripped the interior and removed the boot and pedal release lever mountings. He then removed the boot cable from the boot lock. A new cable was fitted.
