The goal posts have moved

What started out as a simply a project to remove the vent ‘stickies’ has typically become a whole lot more. Given that the car is currently off the road for a while, I have taken the recommended option of giving the whole interior a ‘refresh’. You can see the current state above. Compare the carpet colour there to what it was originally:

It has gone from a pinkish crimson to a deep red just with steam clean! Nice eh? Probably the first one since the car was originally delivered over 25 years ago!

Another thing that has been done is the removal of the vinyl cavallino shields from the front guards.

and now, hey presto

much better!

I’ve always thought that they really didn’t suit the car and were a tad ‘tacky’, however I’d always been hesitant to remove them for fear of stripping the paint. Anyway, that is now another job that has been completed from my overall long term check list.

The car is going to look pretty amazing when it is done, inside and out! Can’t wait till it’s all done.

An interior refresh

After recently discovering the ‘stickies’, I reached out to a few owners to see what they suggested as the best course of action. The recommendations varied from applying a coating to cleaning with solvent. All of these would have involved a major effort on my part and also ran the risk of damaging other parts of the car, especially the leather on the dash. I also figured that once things start becoming ‘stickie’ it is only a matter of time until it all becomes ‘stickie’. Thus, if I’m going to fix things, I should get it done properly.

Luckily, another contact has extensive experience with this and suggested a interior cabin refresh, including refurbishing all the trim pieces. This would also include laser etching the graphics back onto the trim, which I had also been considering as some of my switches were becoming worn and faded.

Downside is that the car needs to be away for a couple of weeks to have all the trim pieces removed, sent away to be reconditioned and then re-installed. During the same time it was suggested to do a full interior detail, which I agreed with. It makes sense to do this while the trim pieces are off and the car is in pieces. It was something I have been meaning to do myself but just never had a location in which I could do this.

One of the areas where the wear and tear is most obvious is on the door handle, buttons and grip. Part of the refreshment process will be to also tidy these up which will be great as these had been areas that were starting to annoy me.

There are far cheaper ways to remove the ‘stickies’ but I’d rather get it done properly and completely so I don’t have to worry. Also getting the interior detailed and tidied up during the same time also makes sense and was something I was going to do. Given that the inside is where you spend the most time with the car it makes a lot of sense to get this done and time away from the car is a small price to pay for this. Also, doing this will add to the value of the car and let’s be honest, after 25+ years of use it could do with a once over!

I’ll have more to share as this process progresses so stay tuned.

The stickies have arrived

I was adjusting one of the vents in the middle of the dashboard and discovered that it is suffering from the well known Ferrari ‘stickies’ that plague many older cars. Basically, the coating on the plastic begins to separate from the actual plastic moulding leaving a nasty black sticky residue.

Luckily for me, this is really the only place I have found it. Not doubt it has been caused by sun exposure over the years, given the position of the vent on the dash. The question now is how to fix it? The challenge is that there are so many remedies out there, finding the best one is the next step. It’ll also be a little tricky to get right into the vents and I’ll no doubt need to clean the complete surface and lot of reside is going to come off I reckon.

The problem would be far worse if it was on the buttons for the A/C in the centre console. Finger crossed that it doesn’t start appearing there as well. Being on the vent in the dash means that I don’t to worry about it too much but I’ll need to start working on a solution because the reside does make quite a mess and will only continue to deteriorate.

In good news the 3D printed cog for the A/C controller that deteriorated appears to do the job when inserted in the controller. The next step will be to get the 3D people to make me a few copies that I can make available to people if they want. No idea on a prices as yet because I need to work out how many to make and what the actual, rather than test, costs are going to be. I’ll certainly post an update when I have that sorted, hopefully in the next few weeks.

The next 3D challenge will be to copy the F355 ashtray body, which I had lots of drama with back in the day.

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Hopefully, being a bigger item it will be easier to 3D print this and perhaps make it out of stronger material to prevent the arms from snapping as you see above.

As always, once one projects ends another appears. Let’s see what witchcraft people recommend to get rid of the ‘stickies’.