Ferrari 348 engine bay and rear end restoration.

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Top and bottom rear suspension arms have been blasted ,powdercoated and rebushed. Changing the bushes is not a job to be taken lightly. I would
recommend finding someone with a hydraulic press to get them out and back in again. I managed to do 12 out of 16 using the press above and a fly press. I made some tooling to do this. The item above has a bolt welded in dead centre which kept it all in line. This fits underneath the bush. Its not
in the photo of the press but im sure you will get the idea. The outer lower arm bushes were very stiff and I had to take the arms to an engineer I
know to get them all the way in. Easy with the right kit.

All looking very nice. Did you buy original bushes or other such as Superformance?

Trevor.

Hi Trevor, I used genuine 355 bushes. Meant to be 20% stiffer and all fit perfectly. I dont want to get to far away from standard. I dont like using
makes like Proflex on my own cars. They can make for a harsh ride. Its a personal thing and I have fitted lots of them to other peoples road cars
with great success. They need periodic attention in my experience. Re-lubing I mean by that. Good product though used by many.

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Driveshafts rebuilt. Powdercoated shafts. Joints have been stripped and reassembled then painted with a metal protection paint similar to standard.
A friend managed to get me some from someone he knows. It came in an unmarked tin so no make for this. Looks like Ferrari brush this on but
these were sprayed as I only had a small amount. I will try to find a make for the paint at some point. Maybe the military use this as I think the
supplier is in the army.

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Handbrake linkage all done. I used new cables right through. The handbrake feel superb now. Remember to adjust the hub adjuster on the shoes
first before taking up the slack in the cables.

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For those who may not know, this is whats in the bottom of the dry sump tank. May be difficult to remove this due to the steel retaining studs being seized to the cover. Try to extract the stud first if you have problems. Forcing it may crack the hole flange. This is how mine looked before cleaning. Nothing evil in there. I dont think these would be removed that often to be honest.

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Picture 1 is of the top of the engine block with inlet manifold removed. In the centre between the two blue Temp sensors is a bleed off hose which
goes to the coolant header tank. As you can see the hose is bulging and the fitted clip has been tightened far to much. This is an obvious point of
failure in future in my opinion so I have replaced the hose and clip. Also I have replaced the temp sensors with the new type of Bosch units.
Also the old connectors have been removed and new ones fitted. They have gold plated pins which has got to be an improvement. You can access
these with the manifold still in place as shown. If you cant fit a socket over the new sensors use a 19mm crowsfoot spanner to tighten. As shown.
The other sensor you can see in picture 1 is for the temp gauge on the dashboard. Its made by Veglia but oddly no number found on it. Would
recommend changing this if you had the manifold off as it looks an impossible job otherwise. All this work is to prevent, rather than cure any faults.
I will post the part numbers for the sensors when I get over to the workshop next.

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Worth checking this vacuum unit. Its under the front of the plenum and controls the air compensator valve/butterfly between the two chambers.
You can use a vacuum pump if you have one or short of that a piece of vac tube and suck through it. If you have no resistance to the
sucking you have probably got a hole in the diaphragm. From what I can gather the the compensator valve works between 3250 to 5500 rpm
and adds torque to the midrange so handy to have working properly. Please correct me if Im wrong about this. Make sure the associated linkages
are nice and free too. I used a light white grease on reassembly. Easy with engine out or manifold off. Very awkward with manifold on engine in car..

Hi there, looks like you are doing a very good job there :thumbsup: keep up the good work.

While you have it down that far you may want to check the condition of the water pipe that goes inbetween the 2 temp sensors, on mine it was totally corroded see here

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/139313746-post159.html

I did make my own one but you can buy them from hill eng
http://www.hillengineering.co.uk/cat...241-p-326.html

Hi Paul, Thanks for the tip. The pipe in question looked in good shape and cleaned up fine. Did not see a reason to replace it this time round. I know
what you mean though and have had to replace similar items on other vehicles over the years. Thanks again. Why have you pulled your engine to
pieces.? Did something let loose?