Work Page 3

   

   

   

   

 

View of the inspection cover.

My first trip to Maranello in Egham was very painless, the new bearings for the air con belt were only a few pounds so I was naturally delighted, the sales man did point out though that this was not the norm.

Working on the 308 is a breeze, jack up the rear, pull off the wheel and remove the large inspection cover which is normally held in place with some large self tapping screws. And voila!!

If you click the image to the right, the damaged air con tensioner is hidden just behind the water pipe below the water pump pulley. The large silver lump on the right is the right hand fuel tank.

For a first job, this was easy, and took just a few minutes. The result was instant, no more noise. While the cover was off I also noticed that the alternator belt was looking quite warn, but I guessed this would wait until I did the full service... Wrong!

That weekend I drove to my local town to get some fuel and the belt broke some 5 miles from home... The alternator belt on this car is strange, it is a standard "V" but a great deal narrower than the normal 10mm ones. It measures 6mm across the flat and has the serrated edge on the out side flat as opposed to the inner "V". These belts are only available from Ferrari, but as a temporary repair I fitted a normal Gates belt 6220mc or 10mm by 1000mm.

Changing the stereo from the old Pioneer cassette to the CD out of my old Spitfire was interesting. The stereo is mounted in the centre console and seems to be fitted from underneath. For the life of me I could not get under it to remove the old stereo so ended up having to cut out the old one. Another issue was where to put the CD auto changer, normally these go in the boot (trunk) but on this car there is an engine in the way. The picture to the left shows the original Pioneer in its somewhat unusual position.

So far most things had gone to plan, luck was also seriously on my side, every time I needed a bit for the car, it would turn up on eBay that day. In this was I managed to source a pair of brand new Koni front shocks for half the retail price and a K&N oil filter. I also managed to sell everything that I removed from the car, including the old timing belts and bearings, stereo and the alarm. It seemed strange the car was almost self financing.