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!!
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.
