I swear to God, Gaydon is cursed. For background, Gaydon in Warwickshire is home to both Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin’s design and development centers. It’s also the site of the British Motor Museum. Documenting the rise and fall of the UK’s motor industry, I call it the Cathedral of Failure. Nonetheless it’s a central location with a lot of history and more importantly, acres of car parking, making the cathedral… sorry, the museum the perfect venue for car gatherings throughout the less wet months of the year.
A long time ago I went to a car show there in my Plymouth Duster and it rewarded my grandstanding by blowing a piston. Two decades or so later, I spent three years stalking through the corridors of Land Rover like Darth Vader, unfucking things that shouldn’t have been fucked up in the first place. For my efforts, I was rewarded with a boot to the ass at the start of the pandemic via email. So yeah, Gaydon and I have history. Then the week before last when I was going to meet up with the owner of the Multipla I just wrote about, the curse struck again. It’s that or there’s a hex that affects only me when I get to within a mile or two of the place. I’m convinced it’s built on the grounds of a derelict Victorian insane asylum.
Unlike its owner, the Ferrari does not like sitting around doing nothing. Any classic car needs regular exercise. It seems unfair to subject the Mondial to a regimen I don’t do myself, but entering my fifties kicking and screaming means I’ve gone from earning a living on my back (lying under clay models, prepping them for review, what did you think I meant?), to earning a living sitting on my ass, which suits me just fine thanks. These exertions usually happen every two to three weeks. If there’s no particular journey planned, I just take it to get groceries for the week.
Wake Me Up
The Ferrari waking procedure is as follows: Open the front hood and turn the battery isolation switch to the on position. Now there’s 12 volts in the nervous system, pop the engine cover and check the oil and coolant levels. Top up if necessary. Satisfied everything is as it should be squeeze into the driver’s seat. This is an extremely undignified operation because the garage where I store it is only fractionally bigger than the car itself, so I can’t fully open the door. Once in, make sure it’s in neutral, press the clutch and turn the key. A few seconds delay as fuel is dragged from the huge tank into the mechanical injection system, and then three liters worth of 32-valve Italian V8 roars into life with the merest hint of oil haze out of the thundering tailpipes. Shove the lever left and forwards for reverse, release the flyoff handbrake located between the driver’s seat and the rocker, slowly back out.
Like myself, the Mondial is moody and uncooperative when first woken up. It emits strange rattles and is stiff to operate. Having not moved for a fortnight the steering squeaks when making the four-point turn to get it pointed in the right direction. I reacquaint myself to having my butt six inches off the tarmac and no power steering, but it usually only takes until the end of the road for the muscle memory to return. However, there are still foibles to contend with.
Let me walk you through the idiosyncrasies of the Mondial gear change. The lever is a foot high chrome stick with a black plastic 8 ball screwed on the top. There is a metal gate at the base with fingers for guidance but not precise location. The shift pattern is a dogleg first with gears two through five in a normal H pattern. The idea is that once you’ve pulled away from a standstill, first is no longer needed until you come to a complete stop and need to pull away again. Shift quality depends on two things. How warm the gearbox is and what side of bed it got out of. Forcing the issue when cold and the box registers protest with a loud metallic clang and the lever springing back to neutral, 8-ball painfully whacking your hand.
So take your time. Shift with the shoulder, not the wrist. Arm and leg movements need decisive coordination – do not attempt a change of gear until the clutch is fully on the floor. Don’t try and be clever and heel and toe it on the way down the box, it doesn’t like it. No second for a few miles until the gearbox is warmed up, so shift straight from first to third at the start of a journey. The gearing is short enough for this not to be a problem – despite the Mondial’s wide rev band you can’t hit sixty until third. Until the water and oil temperature gauges get out of bed I keep the revs below three and half thousand. This is mildly tormenting because everything about this car, gearchange included, feels better with more revs through the drive train.
Rush Hour
There are two routes to Gaydon from my house. The quicker, easier route involves the A46 Coventry bypass dual carriageway to the M40. The M40 links Birmingham to London and I am convinced is the fastest road in the country; partly because it’s usually lightly trafficked but also because it passes through rural Northamptonshire – the UK’s motorsport valley. This was my commuting route as it was just easier when I was half asleep and operating on minimal caffeine first thing in the morning.
The second route involves taking the A452 through Royal Leamington Spa, coming out the other side through a minor wasteland of industrial premises including the Vitsoe designer furniture factory and some horrid new build housing of no architectural merit whatsoever. You then join the A4100, about five or six miles of brilliantly winding road that runs parallel to the M40 and deposits you nicely right outside Gaydon. Because the Leamington Spa option involves stop-start driving through the center of town and I’m an incorrigible show off, you can guess which route I took to meet up with Glyn and the Multipla. Not only would it satisfy my insatiable need for attention, it would be better exercise for the Ferrari.
Bimbling over the speed humps and sitting at traffic lights gazing at the Mondial’s reflection in the shop windows everything was fine. The oil and water were slowly warming up and second gear was now ready for use. As I blatted out the other side of Leamington, away from a set of lights where two lanes became one, an upshift to third elicited a minor crunch. Maybe I had rushed it, maybe I was being a bit clumsy because of my dyspraxia. Coming up to the big roundabout onto the A4100 it wouldn’t go into second. The clutch was definitely all the way on the floor and I was off the gas, what the hell? Try again. No dice. Slot back into third and pull out slowly, hope the motor doesn’t bog and die leaving me stranded. I have visions of a JLR development driver hustling a camouflaged SUV on his way back to base for lunch, coming around the corner all crossed up and spearing me in the driver’s door.
Goodbye Horses
All gearchanges are now getting a bit recalcitrant. I begin double-pumping the clutch in a vain attempt to get some pressure into the hydraulic line. The pedal doesn’t sink to the floor, but it’s getting softer. My predicament becomes clear: I have no chance of turning around and getting back home. But if I can keep moving I can get to Gaydon, park it up and consider my options. I don’t want to let Glyn down, I’d still be able to drive the Fiat and get a Ferrari breakdown story out of it as well. It’s a couple of miles; by carefully approaching the roundabouts between where I am and there, I won’t have to stop. If I have to take it out of gear I almost certainly won’t be able to get going again.
Changing gears has become an impossibility. I attempt a third to second down change and have to abort, stuck in a neutral no man’s land while rolling helplessly ever more slowly, a column of traffic beginning to snarl up behind me. Hazard warning lights on, I attempt to wave people past with my right hand, find a gear with my left hand, while pumping the clutch and feathering the throttle. Eventually, the lever reluctantly slots into third and we’re moving. I won’t be trying that again. I’ll have to stay in third all the way.
But Gaydon isn’t quite finished with me yet. The approach road to the museum is a right-hand turn with a set of traffic lights. As they get closer I’m willing them to change to green. They don’t. I knock the Mondial out of gear to come to a complete stop. By this point, I have no clutch at all. Whatever I do with the pedal has no impact whatsoever inside the bell housing. Years ago, I was a dispatch rider in London (ask your parents). One day the Honda CG125 I was riding snapped its clutch cable, and I had to get away from a standstill by paddling the thing moving with both feet, and then once rolling cramming the bike into first with a hefty stamp of my left boot. I made a few pathetic impromptu wheelies but despite the best efforts of central London traffic survived to get back to the office in one piece. This wouldn’t work with 3000lbs of Ferrari. As the lights went green I pumped the clutch pedal furiously while attempting first gear. KLAANNNNNG! Ok maybe second? KERLAAAAANG! Fucking hell. The lights returned to red. Maybe third? The lever didn’t go all the way in but there was the merest hint of forward movement. After what felt like a lifetime the lights went green again. Another attempt at getting third. Definite forward movement. The lever is still baulking, but more momentum is being obtained. I am now crossing over the wrong side of the road at walking pace, but at least I’m moving.
Perhaps the synchro on third is just a bit more forgiving. Rolling off the camber of the road provides a bit more speed. Constant forward pressure on the gear lever and third finally crunches in. Marvelous. A man in a hi-vis vest beckons me to stop. Not on your life mate.
“Exhibiting or visiting?” he says. There’s a bloody show on today.
“Visiting and I can’t stop the clutch has gone!” I yell out the window as I drive past, definitely not intending to stop.
“Staff car park round the back!” he gesticulates.
Yeah, I know exactly where it is thanks very fucking much. I used to work here. In a rare display of me thinking a couple of moves ahead, I aim for an empty row so there’s plenty of room for the inevitable recovery truck. Almost exactly a year ago the Ferrari shit the bed when the water pump seized. That happened just outside of London, and I was stranded at a gas station for hours when I should have been at Brands Hatch drinking beer and watching historic racing cars. My breakdown service membership only gives you one recovery per breakdown, so because that incident happened on a holiday weekend I could only get the Ferrari recovered back to my house. A few days later I had to pay out the ass to get it taken to the specialist who looks after it for me, Migliore Cars in Bromsgrove.
This wasn’t a holiday weekend, but it was a Saturday and Migliore was closed. I could leave the Ferrari in situ, secure in the JLR staff car park, get an Uber home and then return on Monday in the Mini and get it recovered. Best of all I wouldn’t have to rearrange meeting up with Glyn and the Multipla, which was the whole point in the first place. As I waited for his arrival, I texted my best friend to tell him what happened. Not because he’d get a cheap laugh out of it like you lot but because we always do this in times of automotive strife, to offer advice and moral support. He advised checking the clutch master cylinder, which of course I hadn’t thought of. Unsurprisingly, it was emptier than David’s wallet.
After a few hours driving the Multipla, buggering about taking photos and a leisurely lunch that involved swapping auto industry war stories, I got an Uber home and did what I always do in times of Ferrari crisis: head to the pages of Superformance UK to scare myself at the cost of replacement parts. The thing is, one of the constant joys of Mondial ownership is that their age, analog nature and commonality with other seventies and eighties mid-engined Ferraris means that parts prices are pretty reasonable. When the water pump went last year the replacement was less than £200. The final bill did end up being quite a lot more than that because it was serviced at the same time, and I had a couple of other little jobs done.
A replacement master cylinder was £124. There were two slave cylinders listed, for £100 and £200. It didn’t specify what the difference was, although I would later discover the cheap one was a pattern part and the dearer one a genuine Maranello item. Perhaps the extra pays for a yellow cardboard box with black horses on it. But until I got the Mondial recovered and the reason for the lack of fluid in the system investigated I wouldn’t know.
Haunted When The Minutes Drag
Monday morning I found myself back in the staff car park at Gaydon waiting for the AA to turn up. The standard AA procedure is to send a patrol out first to ascertain the nature of the breakdown. I had already informed them via the app the car was immobile and the clutch had failed, but they wanted me to phone them anyway. Despite my telling them a patrol wouldn’t be able to recover it because I had been through this dog and pony show a year ago, they insisted on sending a Transit van with towing apparatus out anyway.
“What size wheels are these, mate? They’re not 14” or 15” are they?” said the AA guy.
“No. They’re metric. 390mm”
“What’s the PCD size?”
Fucked if I know.
“I don’t know”
“Yeah. I can’t recover it because I’d have to lift the back and the front overhang is too long. I’ll have to get a flat bed sent out”
Well no fucking shit sherlock. That’s two hours of both our lives wasted.
The patrol man informs me the recovery driver will call me when he’s twenty minutes or so out. Perfect. I can go home, have a bite of lunch, and call Migliore to let them know the car is on its way. Glancing at the time, to my horror it is now getting towards 2pm. Last year, it took about five hours for the recovery truck to arrive. Migliore closes at five and is an hour away. If I don’t get a call by about half three I’ll have to call the whole thing off and repeat the entire ridiculous exercise on Tuesday, making a big hole in my working week below the waterline. Back home at 3pm I get a phone call.
“Hello Mr. Clarke? I’m in the south car park at Gaydon but I can’t find your Porsche”
“Umm, that’s because it’s not a Porsche. It’s a bright red Ferrari. It shouldn’t be hard to spot. Are you there now?”
“Yes”
Shitting hell.
“I’m at home, I’ll be there in twenty minutes”. Needless to say, this time I did not take the scenic route through Leamington town center. Twenty five minutes later I was watching the Mondial being winched onto a flat bed truck. The gymnastics the bed of a modern recovery truck can perform are nothing short of amazing. The whole bed hydraulically manipulates to a position where it’s almost flat on the tarmac, allowing broken vehicles to be hauled on easily. Satisfied my beloved Mondial was on its way to being cared for by someone who knows what they’re doing, I took some pictures (because Matt would never forgive me if I didn’t) and handed the recovery guy the keys, wondering how much the incoming bill would be this time.
The garage called me on Wednesday. The owner informed me they got it moving by topping up the master cylinder reservoir, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. They traced the leak to the slave cylinder, which had failed simply due to age. Did I want the pattern or the genuine part? At a difference of £100 you better believe I went aftermarket. Including labor the total bill was £340 and it would be ready Friday. All that stood between me and getting my car back was a pain in the ass journey on Britain’s ramshackle railway system.
Strange Kind Of Love
This is the thing about owning an old Ferrari – the costs can be manageable if you’re clever. Not long after I got the car a trip to the local hand car wash place revealed both doors were leaking and needed new seals – £336 to you squire. I bought ten meters of generic door seal that matched the profile for £40 from eBay and fitted it myself. The Veglia digital clock had some dead segments. I naively thought this might have been shared with some Fiat or other. They’re no longer available, and if you can find one second hand it will be eye-wateringly expensive. Someone on the FerrariChat forums had taken one apart and soldered new seven segment LED components in. I found some by looking up the part numbers and got a friendly electronics firm in Sheffield to solder them in for me. They also repaired the original dealer-fit Pioneer stereo at the same time. The total cost including postage was £100.
So if you were expecting another £1800 bill like last year’s big breakdown, I’m sorry to disappoint you. For that you’ll have to wait until I get the air conditioning fixed. It needs a new compressor, but surprise surprise they’re no longer available either. Although I have found a place that can rebuild it locally, I expect the bill will be pretty ruinous, but I will get it sorted because although even when working it’s pretty ineffectual, things not working correctly kinda bug me. Maybe I should fix the electric antenna first.
- I Let A Famous YouTuber Drive My Ferrari (And He Let Me Drive His)
- You Can Buy An Actual Mid-Engined Ferrari For The Price Of A New Chevy Blazer
- These Ferrari Warning Lights Seem To Demand The Impossible
- My Ferrari Failed Its Annual Inspection And Made A Total Idiot Of Me
“After what felt like a lifetime the lights went green again.”
I felt the chills and PTSD of breaking down in traffic. My first car had a crappy carburetor and loved to choke under acceleration. Poor electrics and an old starter got me familiar with the open-door push method of getting a vehicle moving.
Once again another one of Adrian’s schemes of intentionally breaking his Ferrari in order to create content in which he can cash in! ( ͡ʘ ͜ʖ ͡ʘ)
Have you no shame! 😉
Your premise is flawed based on the fact you think they pay me to write this dross.
Oh, come on now, surely they throw you a Fiver every now and then. ┐(´•_•`)┌
Why would he exert himself breaking his Ferrari down when he could just sit and wait for it to happen naturally?
“I’m convinced it’s built on the grounds of a derelict Victorian insane asylum.”
Sorry to break it to you, but all of UK is a derelict Victorian insane asylum. With decent kebabs.
And pubs.
Geez, Adrian, it’s one thing to tell them what it’s like to own the car, but it’s quite another to tell them how to turn it on and take it away–I love the battery isolation switch, but I love even more the fact that nobody knows about that little knob! Oh, now I’ve said too much. Ditto the wacky e-brake and dogleg pattern…at least you didn’t tell them how to put it in R.
I feel your pain about the garage. I’ve not yet had to go in over the door but it’s nice with the cabriolet to know I could…in a pinch!
I’m sure just about everyone here relates to “gazing at the reflection in the shop windows,” but I get a special charge from these pieces because if I squint, it’s my car. Rest assured my own sailing has been no smoother: the other day, after it warmed up, the RPMs dropped in an uphill shift and it died in front of a city bus! Luckily it was empty and not a soul saw me with all the lids open and I was able to get it back home. Luckily my shop is around the corner, but good god, the cars in their bays don’t look like your mechanic’s! What, three 308s?! And the bottom-left looks from that angle like a ute, what a notion.
Anyway, keep it coming, and may your next piece be about a hassle-free round trip on a sunny day. Thank you for your contributions to this wonderful site.
I never used to use the isolation switch, because, and I swear I am not making this up, I got fed up setting the clock every time I got the car out. Trouble was the supplying dealer had fitted a cheap Chinese battery and it failed after a year. I splashed out on a decent Bosch one and now use the isolator (and put up with setting the clock).
I actually have family that sits in back, so I’m usually too close to the dash to see the clock, so I’ve let that go; but now that you mention it, I installed a battery tender so I don’t HAVE to kill it, so maybe I’ll set the clock after all–I still can’t see it, but it’ll make me feel better knowing it’s correct. Ha, another good Autopian tip! Cheers.
Sometimes I’m amazed that Ferrari mechanics aren’t some the wealthiest people on Earth.
That repair bill seems incredibly cheap, especially considering that the shop specializes in Ferrari and Maserati.
They barely even marked up the parts! Most places around here upcharge at least 50% over the cash and carry price of an auto parts store, usually much more.
No phony “environmental disposal services” fee? No bullshit “shop supplies and consumables” charge?
And a single hour of labor to change and bleed a clutch slave cylinder? They didn’t charge an extra hour minimum for the second guy to press the clutch? Honest work for honest pay? In this day and age?
I wish I could find a shop that modest near me. Then I might actually consider owning an Italian sports car.
(Yeah, I’m a little grumpy. The guy who ran my usual shop retired last year and I haven’t found another reasonable and reliable mechanic yet.)
For an extra 100 pounds I would have went with the genuine part too, that isn’t a lot of money to fix a Ferrari.
Its a lot of pounds for a cardboard box.
Honestly, the British (or local/combo) are almost making more than the mechanics with their 20%! VAT. And they don’t have to lift a finger for it.
Yeah, me either. At least he’s loving his retirement.
Related wrenching Q I’ve always wondered – are Ferraris all metric, or are there oddball fasteners, bolts, etc. that come from some ancient Italian standard, require special tools (no doubt with prancing stallions embossed on them)?
“oddball fasteners, bolts, etc”, oh, you must be referring to “adjustable wrench and/or vice grip sized”
What little wrenching I’ve done myself has been all metric.
These vignettes of exotic ownership are like a lamp to a moth for me. It can’t be that bad, no, nearest service is in Montreal, 200 km away. You could do some of the work youself. Who are you kidding…. and so on.
If you’ve got space to wrench, these are definitely DIY cars. Loads of the forum do it.
Adrian, the car is now what, 40 years? There will be tons of parts that need replacing or refurbishing soon. Maybe look into dropping the entire engine on the next belt service in order to basically replace all hoses and lines. I promise you, at some time they start leaking or just implode, major one being the line to the oil cooler on the driver side, you don’t want to be associated to the major splash when that happens on public roads.
Belt service will (I think) be due around January, when it will be three years. Something to think about.
The trick to starting a manual with no clutch is to turn the car off, put it in first gear, then give it the gas as you turn the starter motor. Then just drive it without the clutch (which any seasoned manual driver has practiced I’m sure).
This is the way. I was a high school kid and the clutch cable snapped on the Plymouth Champ a few miles from home but I got it home.
Never tried that. I’d always push the car and then jump in and dump the clutch in first. This mostly worked because it was in flat ass Florida.
That’s if you have no starter motor or the battery is dead. Done that a few times as well. If there’s no clutch fluid or the clutch cable is broken, there is no clutch to dump.
I learned that trick in college when the clutch slave cylinder I’m my ’84 Celica decided to do the same thing as Adrian’s here. I was 90 miles from my recently purchased trailer, had the car loaded up with scavenged furniture, and did not want to deal with any vehicle repairs until everything had been unloaded at my new home. Thankfully the old Celica turned out to be surprisingly easy to drive without a clutch, but it did need the 1st-gear turnover launch after every complete stop.
For those owners that can’t throw around money like Sir Adrian:
https://files.homepagemodules.de/b166657/f34t1329p7295n3.jpg
gets you the seals for a rebuild, the master can be replaced by TRW PCN111
https://files.homepagemodules.de/b166657/f34t1329p7295n2.jpg
Back when I was a dumb kid I “borrowed” my dad’s stick shift S10 Blazer late at night. I had a car full of other dumb kids to drive around for shenanigans, and the POS I was supposed to be driving (a gawdawful Chevy Citation) just wouldn’t do.
All went according to plan until I went to engage the clutch and got bupkis – the clutch cable had apparently busted. So I had to find a pay phone and wake up the old man. He showed up about 20 minutes later and didn’t say a word. He just chucked the Citation keys at my head, got in the Blazer, and just … drove home.
I was gobsmacked. My teenage self had no idea you could shift without the clutch with enough care and rev matching, and since it was late at night he only had to come to a complete stop once or twice. Shut the engine down, pop the box in first, crank the starter to get it moving, and Bob’s your uncle.
Of course if he managed to hose the Blazer transmission in the process a junkyard replacement might have run a couple hundred bucks at best. I have to imagine a Mondial gearbox is a bit dearer.
That’s not a garage, it’s a sarcophagus!
I like the idea of demystification of the Ferrari; I think a little demystification is a healthy thing for anything with a legend attached to it.
I have a friend that for years worked booking musical acts. He booked a famous folk singer that everyone has heard of. Picked him up at the airport, a very nice guy. He asks my friend, “is there a place around here to get a good hamburger?”
My friend says “Yes, but I’m curious. I’ve read your tour rider, and it is very clear that everything is to be vegan, ethically sourced, carbon neutral, etc., so I’m a little surprised that you’d want a hamburger.”
The folk singer turns to my friend, smiles, and says “That, my boy, is why it’s called ‘show’ business….”
*starts writing his rider for when The Autopian fly him over to the US*
Ask that you be provided an E type or 25th anniversary Lambo Countach; when they balk, you can say “Well, I’m reasonable. How about a 2014-2018 Cherokee?”
I already told Matt I want to drive the Aztek. If we ever buy one.
The staff – “Why does Adrian need a bowl full of only green M&Ms?”
Matt: where the hell do we get black M&Ms?
Those AREN’T M&Ms!!
Who let that @%&+* rabbit in here?!
Happy almost-anniversary!
I wouldn’t mind having a car that breaks down here and there, the important thing to me is, is there a shop around that can work on my car? Can I get parts fast? Some things are out of my possibility to fix and having a reliable shop near your home is the best thing ever, I can even ride my motocompacto back home saving on Uber
I made sure there was a specialist reasonably close before buying it.
The bats have left the bell tower, the victims have been bled…the Mondial is dead
Well done.
undead undead undead
Don’t tell David but every sub heading in this article is a post-punk/goth/eighties track. I’m gonna try and work at least one in every piece.
Brilliant work!
Don’t bother with the antenna, this is a car that demands that something be broken, let the antenna be the sacrificial component. And be honest, were you going to listen to AM/FM anyway?
I could leave it tuned into Radio 1 in a tragic attempt to maintain my youth.
Having been previously in this situation for a few years, the solution to this is to have the theme song from Metal Gear Solid 2 on your phone (just from 0:40 to 1:22) so you can play it as you get into the car.
Must’ve been a tight fit for a big boy like you.
5-foot-8 (173cm) and 144lbs (65kg), but similar situation where I only had about 8-10 inches (20-25cm) to open a door and squeeze in.
Moreover, passengers were a no go, as the owners haphazardly put a new facade on the exterior, and all the nails driven in were completely exposed on the inside. So if you opened the passenger side door, you had hundreds of exposed nails that would’ve potentially shredded the paint.
Glad I’m out of there!
God it’s like pearls before swine with you lot.
Nope, got one far better.
So the kitchen had the original cabinets from the 1930s. Solid oak, no scratches or gouges, copper knobs and handles. Just the finish was a bit worn from the friction of hands touching the cabinet and cupboard doors over 90+ years. Would cost a fortune to replace today, but solvable with a dedicated weekend of labor to refinish it properly.
When I went back at the very end to get a few last bits and bobs I hadn’t moved, I found they SPRAY PAINTED THE ENTIRE KITCHEN WHITE. The walls. The ceiling. All the cabinets. No attempt to even do it well either. It’s like they time traveled back to 1984 to buy the cheapest off-brand rattle and from a K-Mart, and just used that. No consistency either, so it was thin in some areas and excessive in others.
Craziest part? Next tenant paid 37% more than me!
When you mentioned the MGS2 theme I knew exactly which section you meant without watching the video. Best opening credits in a video game ever. I assumed you knew your MGS. It appears not……
Been 20 years since I last played it, so don’t remember much of the script. Thought you were commenting on the landlord’s pound-shop style of repairs, so thought the $50 of spray paint on what would be $25,000 of cabinetry would seem more ridiculous than their attempts to gussy up how the garage looked.
In the original MGS it’s the comment Snake makes to Vulcan Raven when they fight for the first time and Raven is in a tank.
I regularly get boxed in by brodozer and other inconsiderate pilots whenever I venture out shopping. Being 197 cm tall / 6’5 and 115kg / 250 lbs squeezing into either of the cars is a challenge. The urge to key the **stards must be resisted as that would be lowering myself to their level. I’ve often had to wait for them to return so I can get in the car.
Normally, I’m open to cheaping out on parts, but I do tend to be strategic about it, which is saying a lot about a Jeep owner. For functions less typically used or less mission-critical, I’ll go with the best known aftermarket brand as long as it’s a justifiable savings difference. That said, I think if it were me, I would’ve ponied up (pun intended) for the genuine Maranello slave cylinder in this case. Sure, it’s twice the price, but it’s almost worth it for the peace of mind. Fortunately, it looks like Adrian’s preferred garage has a very reasonable labor/labour rate. But any savings on the part would easily be wiped out by another ride on the flatbed.
AA membership is less than £100 per year.
The difference in the part value covers membership. Perfect!
in dealing with British cars of a certain age the reproduction parts are often better than original stock.
That’s just a beautiful automobile. It makes me very happy that you are driving it regularly and taking care of it. May all repairs be so inexpensive.
I’m no air conditioning expert but if it’s belt driven and compresses freon couldn’t most similar size compressors work?
I’m suggesting something from the early-mid 90’s with lots of parts support.
Even if the freon lines are different size an adapter can be fabricated easily for metal tubes.
If there’s anything the Yugo community has taught me, it’s that most problems can be solved with something out of the GM parts bin and an adapter.
Possibly. I’ll leave that up to the air con place to figure out, they are familiar with older cars.
I’m no air conditioning expert but if it’s belt driven and compresses freon couldn’t most similar size compressors work?
It should. Going by this parts list it looks like the Mondial used either a York or Sankyo SD compressor:
https://www.eurospares.com/Ferrari/Mondial/Mondial_3.0_QV_(1984)/PartDiagrams/046/Air_Conditioning_Compressor_and_Controls?_gl=1*j0slv8*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTk1MTg0Mjg0NC4xNzE3MDE4NDI0*_ga_HH3QNDJH8C*MTcxNzAxODQyMS4xLjAuMTcxNzAxODQyMS4wLjAuMA..
The York compressor body (Freightliner edition) is on Amazon for about $116, while a “universal” Sankyo SD can be had for $128
https://www.amazon.com/Compressor-ET210L25150-Compressors-Freightliner-Peterbilt/dp/B0CG5WPMVV/ref=sr_1_24?crid=3RKL2FHG49174&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.jZLnIuiIhMef0RcE5IanhYQ-9H9cXl9Tk6ErbwkaZ2E5h4T5EDWXBaS1sWxGcpxvTAm7jahUfbih7wLEqKbzP90BV7KH5dOkB2YLU3WPhXgd4abbBIo1Qyg0YoHjw4BUpbQLjBsc9deWVrfJcDKrLbXUPJdl6yZTccGtEOQMkGmrX6icZJTAVLWL98wrL1DjCN6eD_Rlfk-WhDiQY62LsVb2zwbDKb-lYuTsGasHdgudxsWUXyz2Mht2ylwTF-RISjmYVUi_twX8x1vQJWIdri25P9U5qxw1T69kIv-J4TA.YBWe2hllot1JnP82u6ipmhIK1tcIu2wLxeuizgYYPCo&dib_tag=se&keywords=york+compressor&qid=1717018881&sprefix=york+compressor%2Caps%2C217&sr=8-24
https://www.amazon.com/ACTECmax-Universal-Compressor-Clutch-Sanden/dp/B0759DCTZH/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?crid=261JRRVO4NG02&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wgfTxhF2eSXXB_P6Z4VCHCrqpaPyiYUw8Bp5QrWPejY.IdaGLTRXhdT_aQv0LnR7JyjcM1hI-4BTcOxwAfnIp6M&dib_tag=se&keywords=sankyo+sd+compressor&qid=1717018836&sprefix=sankyo+sd+compressor%2Caps%2C200&sr=8-2-fkmr0
Given the difference of $115-140 or $1300 on what may very well be the same thing its worth a bit of investigating. Just determine which compressor is in question, then go to a shop that has both in stock and compare. I think the pulley should be transferable.
If anything it’d be a great story for the Autopian Who knows, it might even be considered a business expense.
Ferrari maintenance? Death by a thousand cuts.
Glad it wasn’t too expensive.
If you lose clutch and can’t get the car into gear with it running, you can turn the car off, put it in gear, and then start it already in gear. Not recommended of course but in an emergency situation necessary. I had to do it once when my clutch hydraulic line burst and I lost the pedal as a result.
Also you have done a fantastic job of making me think “Maybe my Mach 1 transmission isn’t so bad when cold after all”.
And then blow the starter as well!
Certainly not ideal. If it will build ANY pressure it is typically enough to keep the starter from pushing the car but enough to start it already in gear so it goes when you let off the pedal. Only recommending as an option to get it out of the road not as a standard procedure. Although with it being an older Ferrari it may be more common..
No, it won’t if your engine is warm and properly tuned. Of course the other option was to fill up the master cyl and pump it until you have pedal…just like they did at the shop.
I was nowhere near a garage to get some brake fluid.
None within driving range of the Multipla?
This is why I’m an artist not a mechanic.
Why not be both?
Any story that begins with “My Ferrari…” makes me feel…hmm
Part of why I write these articles about it is to demystify Ferrari ownership a bit.