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Engine
The engine leaked a mixture of oil & water & it appeared to be coming from the front of the engine, The oil/water pump assembly which was built in one unit was the most likely source of the leak. The water /oil mixture leaked freely from where I suspected & the cause was a leaking oil/water seal at the front of the water pump. After setting the engine up on the stand & using gravity feed fuel system was able to run the engine quite easily on the stand. There was little vibration but a lot of noise. No exhaust or exhaust manifold The seal cost only a few pence but the time taken would have been very costly if this repair was undertaken by any professional mechanic. I could definitely not replace it without removing the engine from the car & it was confirmation that my policy of replacing & repairing everything I could within reason whilst the engine was out of the car, was sound
The engine was shoe-horned back in the car in unit with the gearbox as this was the way it was taken out. I am not sure whether this is the recommended way but it worked well for me. The car was on its wheels with chocks to stock any forward movement at the front & was jacked up quite high & placed on axle stands. The resulting angle of the body made it relatively easy to avoid the scuttle & chassis cross members but there were several heart stopping moments as the engine & gearbox passed over the shiny new paintwork. It is now in place & the many connections are being made
The engine was replaced in the car but I was unable to get it started. I had lots of help from Neil Leffley (UK)& Aaron Masters (USA) & eventually I traced the problem down to the ignition timing. At one stage I thought that when I replaced the timing chain & tensioner I had not tensioned the chain & it had jumped a tooth. I removed the valve covers to check this out but the valve timing was still OK Attempting to set the static ignition timing was proving impossible & the only possible answer was that the drive from the camshaft skew gear had moved. I have no idea how because the only thing I had removed from the engine was the distributor. I had marked its position & secured the rotor arm with a cardboard template so it should have gone back in more or less the correct orientation. For reasons I can not understand the ignition timing has moved such that could not get it anywhere near to being correct & the engine just would not run. I then began to move the drive gear around by a tooth at a time & eventually I was able to get the static ignition timing set at 17 degrees before TDC The engine started immediately to my huge sigh of relief January 2005 Update Despite every effort to get the engine to run properly it proved impossible as I could not set the carbs up so that the engine would idle properly. Various suggestions as what might be wrong were investigated without success & after again rechecking ignition timing a compression test & revealed my worst fears were confirmed. There was ZERO compression on cylinders 2,3,6,&10 & I can only think that during the problem getting the engine to run the timing must have been that far out that some of the ,valves have been bent .
Radiator was pressure tested for leaks & then thoroughly flushed out but looked a real mess
This is a major setback as I now have to dismantle the engine top end again & whilst it may be possible to remove the cylinder heads with the engine still in the car I have been reliably advised that this is not the best way to go about this difficult task. This would be the ultimate disaster for me as taking the engine out again is not something I envisaged doing again so soon but I have now removed the engine a second time. The advice I received was that it was all but impossible to remove the heads with the engine in the car &I have now heard of a way to remove & replace the heads whilst the engine is still in the car. I am not convinced that I could have done it at all & even less convinced that I could have done it properly. The problems of dropping small parts into the timing chest & poor "O" ring seals were pointed out by Bill Badurski, Ferrari Club of America Technical Chairman who suggested that I pull the motor & do the job properly. This I have done & he was correct. It took about a week of intermittent persuasion to release both heads. The corrosion of the aluminium heads next to steel head studs produce a fine white aluminium dust (aluminium oxide?) which makes an extremely efficient bond. Repeated application of various penetrating fluids does eventually break it up but removing the heads vertically is a difficult job. I was told it is the hardest job in "Ferraridom" & I fully agree with that This convinced me that putting the heads back at a slight fore & aft angle with the engine still in the car was not the easiest job to do. I have since heard of a professional mechanic who did the head job with the engine in the car & is now doing it again with the engine out certainly justifies the decision to take out the engine The heads were sent to Headshop UK, an engine rebuild specialist for evaluation & repair their opinion was that 18 of the 36 valves were not seating or sealing properly. All the valves were replaced together with their valve guides & seals & both heads were tested, skimmed & delivered back to me in a 14 day turnaround. The heads are now back on the block & I have reset the valve timing &rebuilt the engine.
I put the engine back in the car last week & am in the process of installing the gearbox but like most things Ferrari this is not as simple as the workshop manual leads you to believe. The length of the gearbox from the end of the primary drive shaft to the end of the prop shaft drive is 28 inches & there is only 21 inches between the clutch & the torque tube. It is impossible to just simply insert the gearbox. If you loosen the diff mountings & slide the diff & prop shaft rearward as far as possible there is still not enough room for the gearbox to go in. I had replaced the engine & thought the gearbox replacement would be simple. Instead & because I had made no connections to the engine I pulled the engine up & out about 12 inches. I replaced the gearbox & then dropped the engine into the car. It took some maneuvering but I then slid the gearbox & differential forward to meet the engine & bolted everything together. About a week passed & all the connections were made for the start up. July 2005 Update A freshly charged battery was connected & the engine fired up immediately & ran perfectly-for about 2-3 minutes but then I noticed some unwanted fumes/steam from the exhaust. I was unable to immediately check the coolant level so I checked the oil level & there was water contaminating the oil on the dipstick. Water in the heads was obviously finding its way into the oil drain tubes & was collecting in the sump. This is my ultimate engine nightmare & my only option was to go back to square one. I enlisted the services of respected Ferrari expert Peter Higgins (ex Graypaul) at Loughborough in the UK. My reason for turning the engine over to Peter for rebuild is that I somehow messed up & yet I was not sure where I went wrong; if I did the rebuild again I was concerned that I would not know what to have done differently. Peter has now completely dismantled the engine as shown below & as you can see everything has been dismantled & nothing is being left to chance.
His view of what had happened was that some movement of the cast iron cylinder liners had taken place resulting in it not being possible to tighten the heads down enough to compress the head gaskets. The tolerance for the protrusion of the liners above the block is 0.07mm to 0.11mm.& working within the extremely fine tolerances is essential. He was concerned also that the block surfaces were not in the best condition & would require resurfacing before reassembly, however, they were good enough to seal beforehand. If the engine was to be rebuilt again no risks could be taken so both block surfaces would need refacing & to do this all the cylinder head studs had to be removed. The major difficulty is removing 24 steel head studs from an aluminium V formation block 30 years on & needed an extremely competent engineer to complete the task. The liners will be also rebored to eliminate any score marks & any other surface imperfections with a set of oversized pistons. The blocks will be machined to true & a new set of custom 0.5 mm oversize pistons are on order from J.E pistons in California who have been extremely helpful & are well able to produce what I need. An additional 50 thousandth inch has been taken from the valve cut outs to allow for any necessary machining of the block surfaces that may be required to true the surfaces. New big end & main bearing shells plus any other necessary parts will be fitted so that every eventuality will be covered. The engine has now been replaced in the car, it started up immediately & runs perfectly. It has now done approximately 1200 miles & the cylinder heads required retorquing after this running in period, the valve clearances have been also been reset & the valve timing has been adjusted again. I am pleased to say that the engine is running beautifully & I am a very relieved owner despite the major additional time & unexpected extra cost. The only certainty that has emerged from this episode is that to do any work on these cars cutting corners is foolish & it is so much safer to do any job properly & without any shortcuts.
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