Ferrari 308 brake calliper rebuild part 2

Looking at the brake pistons it was clear that I would benefit from fitting new ones. Remember that they are the same as Porsche 911 ones (47.97mm x 30 mm) and I bought four new ones and the required seal kit from a company called BiggRed - total cost around £120.

You can see the rust removed to reveal shiny casting ready to be reassembled. De-grease the whole thing and plenty of compressed air to make sure there is absolutely no dirt in the callipers.

Fit the new hudraulic seals and pistons with a little brake fluid on the piston as you push it in. I also add some brake grease (red) around the piston as I finally push it down into the calliper housing.

The cut-away on the mating face of the piston has to point towards the forward rotation of the brake disc (brake rotor).



Then fit new dust seals and spring clips - these can be a PITA to fit.

All rebuilt now and ready to re-install on the car. These callipers could do with a gold repaint really, but they still look ok from through the wheels so I will wait until summer to do this.





After rebuilding both front callipers with new stainless steel pistons and new seals I decided to also fit new discs bought from the BremboShop and of course new pads (same as Alfa Spider).

So finally all new brakes and no more pulling to the right :)

Ferrari 308 seized front brake calliper

So I was out driving with the SuperCarDriver guys the other week in my Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 starting pulling to the right (drivers side UK) under braking. I've never really looked at the front brake callipers so I suspect it is time for a rebuild.

The original brake callipers on the 308 are made by ATE and are in fact the same as fitted to the late 1970's Porsche 911 which means that rebuild kits and in fact new callipers and pistons are easy to come by.


So I pulled the left hand calliper pads to take a look and sure enough one of the pistons was seized. So definitely time for a rebuild.

Whilst the hydraulics were still connected and with the pads removed I used the brake pedal to push the pistons out as far as they would go as getting seized ones out once the callipers is removed can be hard.




Next thing was to remove the calliper and remove the pistons. It's normal to use compressed air to pump the pistons out of a removed calliper - clamp the one you don't want to come out first.

This worked finally and the seized outer piston came out. A bit of air also removed the free inner piston to reveal the cause of the seizure - rust of course.



You can see that there is no rust inside the cylinder area but you can see the rust on the thin section after the groove where the hydraulic seal goes. I used a dremel type drill to remove this surface rust - being careful not to mark the inner cylinder area. I also cleaned out the seal groove which showed some signs of rust.


Clean up and rebuild in the next post :)

Don't forget to polish the inside of your Ferrari wheels

There's nothing like being able to eat your dinner off the inside of your wheels ;) Give them a wash inside every six months or so and they'll stay like this forever.

Noisy bearing or not ? Ferrari 308

After pulling the alternator/water pump belt and starting the car there was no noise, but when I reinstalled the belt still no noise. Hmm, never quite got to the bottom of that one, but it could have been recent lack of use I guess.

Noisy bearing on the Ferrari 308

Been a while since I've posted.

I started my GT4 up yesterday after about 3 weeks of not running it and got a kind of tinkling, clicking, rattling noise. Difficult to describe, but sounded like a well worn and/or dry ball bearing.

I did the cam belts about 18 months ago and fitted new non-genuine tensioner bearings. One of the tensioners I pulled off was free running - had that dry/loose bearing feel when you spun it - but I didn't know this until I pulled it off so it wasn't making any grumbling sounds. The two new bearings were as they should be with no spin-on if you held the inner race and tried to spin the outer. Thus I don't think it could be the tensioners - I'll be putting some Hill Engineering ones on though at the next belt change as they are pretty cheap really.

So the question - does this sound like worn out water pump bearing(s) or generator bearing(s)?

Finally, the sound can clearly be heard at the belts end but gets less and less and a few minutes after starting is gone. When I started the car today there was very little evidence of it - but it was still there a little just after start-up.

I'll pull the generator/pump belt tomorrow and start the engine and see. That should quickly eliminate it, although it seems to be more apparent the longer I leave the car between runs.

Neither the water pump or generator have been touched since I've owned the car (4 years) so they are my prime suspects.

Watch this space.

Ferrari photo shoot

Nice sunny Sunday and a few of us from www.SuperCarDriver.com were invited to bring our cars for a Ferrari photo shoot for the website. My Dino 308 GT4 in the middle. Others in the picture, 355 Spyder, 308 GTS, 328 GTS, 360 Spyder and 430 CS.

Ferrari Dino 308GT4 Driveshaft seal replacement

So I got stuck in an tackled the drive shaft seal. First thing was to remove the axle from the car. Undoing the M8 hex bolts was ok for the inner C.V. joint using a long extension and a tough 8mm hex drive - turning the axle each time to get to the next bolt. The nuts are the locking type and were original so had probably never been off but they weren't rusty at least - they need a spanner on though until the bolt comes out. With the inner joint separated you need to remove the outer one to remove the axle. I needed to use the 8mm drive straight onto the bolts and jam the hub. I ended up removing the brake, disc, shock absorber, top A-arm and hum carrier to have a good clean around and better access to the axle and drive flange in the gearbox.








Everything out



The offending seal. Note the RTV sealant in the drive flange bolt hole. Oil can leak through the differantial, through the bolt in to the C.V. joints to you have to seal it when intalling the drive flange. I used ThreeBond/HondaBond.

With the axle and other bits out of the way it's easy to remove the one bolt to remove the drive flang, but I drained the transmission oil on my Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 first as I was going to change it anyway and I followed Robert Garvin's great tutorial on Birdman's website. The old seal came out of the differential case pretty easily and was rock hard as all the other seals I've replaced have been. New seal from www.superformance.co.uk for about £5 pushed into place and the drive flange refitted. Had a clean up with degreaser and a toothbrush whilst access was easy and also stripped both C.V. joints on the axle and fitted new boots and repacked with fresh grease - I figured the old ones must be 30 years old as they also looked original. It's a dirty job replacing C.V. grease but it's done now at least on the passenger side. With it all bolted up and a few good runs there's only a hint of oil residue, so no dripping leaks as before and now surprise given the state of the old seal. I was a little concerned that the inner drive flange had noticeable play when the axle was off, but R&D in Manchester seemed to think it was not too bad as did Nick Cartwright - thanks for the advice.