So far so good

Took the F355 out for a drive this morning as well as giving a good wash and polish. This involved a number of stops and starts.

I am happy to report no issues manifested themselves, with no sign of the ‘chuggs’. As positive as this experience was I need to wait until I need a refill to see whether the ‘chuggs’ has truely been banished. That test should come in the next few weeks.

An other addition I added to the car was to connect a charger directly to the battery and feed it up through the opening where the isolation switch is. Now when the car is standing it will have the charger plugged in keeping the battery in good order.

Over the years the thing that I have been most apprehensive about was the charge in the battery, especially after long periods of being idle (which are rare I admit). Typically, if I was really worried then I could isolate the battery and effectively the car could probably stand for months but I always wanted to avoid that and get a charger.

The charger that was recommended was:

Victron Energy Blue Smart IP65 12-Volt 5 amp 230V, Battery Charger, Bluetooth (AU/NZ)

which is available on Amazon. It works well but also includes an app you can use on your phone that connects to the charger via Bluetooth and allows you to view that state of charge as shown above. The app supports multiple chargers if required and also has an adapter for more modern Ferrari’s here:

Victron Energy 12V (Max. 15A) MagCode Power Clip

also available on Amazon.

Now that car has a charger that can easily be connected I don’t feel the same pressure to ‘have’ to take the car out just to keep the battery charged. I can leave it a few weeks if wanted. Not that I would, but at least now I have more flexibility and less angst.

I am very happy that the car has exhibited no issues after an extended highway run and a number of stops and start while cleaning and polishing. The big test will come in the next few weeks when I take it to get refuelled.

Fingers crossed, no more ‘chuggs’.

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.

Parts hunt

One of the concerns with a aging car is in the scarcity of replacements parts. Looks like I may be up against that at the moment with the following part:

63307100 Timing Actuator

Which enables air flow to be directed to either the windscreen, central vents or feet. The part is currently unavailable to buy new and as such sourcing a used part is hard to find and expensive.

So far, no luck with any supplier I have contacted. I’ll keep trying and share the results.

Almost everything is fixed

The good news is that the car is back from its service. The annoying news is that there is still a few more things that need to be done.

Here’s the replaced clutch plate, which appears to be original (i.e. the only one the car has had after all this time). Can’t complain, about 25 years in age and around 90,000 kilometres in travel.

You can see that it is worn by looking at the ridges and noting that the many are missing as you go around the plate. These missing ridges indicate that clutch material has been worn down. You’ll also notice that the plate tends to wear on the outside. This is expected as the plate grabs on the outside first.

The other interesting thing is that the plate isn’t worn evenly. As you see above, in some places it is badly worn (left) and in others (right) it isn’t! I’ll have to work out why that might happen, however, all in all the old plate was pretty knackered, which you expect after all these years.

Above is the old clutch release bearing that was also replaced. The replacement is an older OEM style release bearing mainly due to it’s reduced price and availability compared to the upgraded model. The upgraded version is over twice the cost currently of the OEM version, without a lot of difference so I’m told. Main point is, I needed a new bearing and now I have one.

The inner ring is the actual bearing that spins and makes contact with the clutch springs when the the clutch pedal is depressed as shown above. Again, being the original bearing, it has had a good life and is beginning to wear and not move as freely as it did initially. Unfortunately, the bearing itself can’t se serviced so a new one is in order.

One of things that I struggled to understand was how the clutch release bearing was actually pushed onto the clutch springs. This can be done either using a mechanical arm or the modern approach is to use hydraulics.

What I worked out initially was that with the F355 it was hydraulic. You can see the two hydraulic lines for the clutch at the top of the housing as shown above, one of which goes off to a bleed valve. What stumped me for quite a while was how it got from here to moving the actual clutch release bearing.

It turns out that those lines that go into the housing go through to the mounting frame as shown above.

The support flange (part number 168589), shown above, has two matching holes. that align with those on the casing.

You’ll see that the support flange is stepped and at the top of that step are two more holes where the hydraulic fluid can flow as shown above.

Onto this flange will fit the clutch release bearing, which has a number of seals to keep the hydraulic fluid from leaking out during operation. It is important that all these seals are good, otherwise you’ll get fluid leaks and increased wear.

I found these three videos to be a handy reference for the whole change over process:

The passenger’s rear hyperblock (part number 114812) or chock absorber mount, as you can see above, also needed to be changed. It should look like:

and is found here:

Apart from this, it seems that there is also a problem with the shock absorber actuator (part number 158732) which sits at the top of the assembly.

Unfortunately, that part is not available, so it will be ordered in for my next visit to Racing Red.

This fault actuator also results in a yellow suspension warning light to be displayed on the right hand side of the dash as shown above (the red light above it is just the seat belt warning light telling me to buckle up), which is on now all the time. I must admit that this is annoying, as I can’t fully relax while driving with a warning light on the dashboard. However, it isn’t a show stopper and will be fixed, so I’ll just have to deal with it for now! Still annoying though.

So Liverpool Exhaust still have the cats to be re-cored. They said ‘maybe’ before Christmas, otherwise, in the New Year. Again, annoying but I appreciate this time of year is busy and I’d rather have them done right than rushed. For now, Sal was replaced the missing cats with some temporary straight pipes to tide me over. Lucky that he had some he could ‘lend’ me.

You can see some other parts that were changed above.

Two cam belt tensioners as shown above (part number 167464), one on either side for each cylinder bank.

Two timing belts as shown above (part number 184986). Again, one on either side for each cylinder bank.

Two inside boot covers (part number 70006021/A) as shown above. These were actually replaced back in 2013. You can read about that here:

https://blog.lovethe355.com/2013/12/07/annual-service/

There is also a full ‘boot kit’ you can use (part number 7006021 – Gaiter Replacement kit) here:

The reason the boots fail is because of the heat generated by the engine over time. This is supposed to be mitigated by the heat shields:

which are not really long enough to fully protect the in board boots. Sal has now extended these heat shields out further to try and prevent this happening again, however seven years isn’t too bad for the boots considering how hot the engine does get.

If you haven’t been following along with the whole story, back in May 2014 I reversed the car into a pole in the middle of the street:

https://blog.lovethe355.com/2014/05/26/look-before-reserving/

that cracked the bumper and also snapped part of the diffuser under the car off. I had the bumper repaired a while back but the diffuser remained broken, which annoyed me every time I looked under the rear of the car.

Luckily, Sal had some replacement diffusers (part numbers 64841000 [left], 64840900 [right]) which are now installed.

Unfortunately, it seems the suspension springs can’t be effectively re-conditioned because if you do they will sag again but faster. That means, that at some point down the track, when they get really bad, I’ll have to replace them. For now, they are fine so I’ll leave that for another day.

Finally, some of the directional components of the air conditioning are not working. This restricts where the flow or air can be directed in the car. It doesn’t prevent the air conditioning from operating, just where the flow can be directed using the vents. To rectify that, more parts will need to be ordered and replaced during the next visit.

So, what still needs to be done?

1. Re-installed re-cored cats.

2. Actuator for passenger rear shock absorber.

3. Air conditioning directional vents.

Hopefully all these can be sorted in the New Year and I’ll be fully operational again (without that annoying dash warning light). However, it is good to have the car back again and I can tell you that the new clutch makes a HUGE difference. The car is so much lighter and easier to drive. Changing gears requires almost no effort now! It is always good to notice a positive change after investing all this money and time to get it fixed.

So another annual service is pretty much complete. Only a few items to finish up, hopefully in the New Year. Thanks again to Sal from Racing Red for sourcing all the parts, lending me some spare cats and getting the job done so quickly. Look out 2021, here we come!

Parts in waiting

I followed up with Liverpool Exhaust about getting cats re-cored but no news on how much or when they can be done it seems. Hopefully, I’ll find out on Monday whether these can be done.

Unfortunately, I received news that the clutch release bearing is worn out. Even worse, it turns out that a replacement may prove hard to source.

Here’s what a clutch release bearing does:

Image from Ricambi

The original part number appears to be 168594 but has now been superseded with an upgraded version which is CRB355MS.

Image from Hills Engineering

Unfortunately, it appears that neither the upgraded version or an original replacement is easily sourced. That means I’ll have to wait and see how long it takes to get either in.

All serviced and good to go

The F355 has returned from it’s annual service, all raring to go. With four new tyres, grip shouldn’t be an issue for a while. A broken water tank cap was also replaced along with some touch up for minor paint chips on the nose were also completed during it’s time away. News is that it’ll soon be needing a new clutch, which has been deferred until next year’s service, given that it is easier to access then when the engine is out. Hopefully, the current clutch will last another twelve months with careful driving.

So next year’s service is going to be a large one with an engine out, re-conditioned springs and a new clutch for starters. Time to start saving the pennies! All of these are not a surprise, given the age of the car and are simply components that require work over time. Doing them all when the engine is out makes the most sense as it makes them all easier to get to as well.

With the service complete I also took the opportunity to give the car a good wash and polish as I typically do around this time of the year. Doing so ensures that the paint and finish remain good for twelve months and any dirt normally just hoses off. Given the current summer heat, it is quite an arduous task to give the car a complete once over but in the end there is nothing more stratifying than to have a fully serviced and clean car now parked away.

Phew. So that is 2019 done and dusted. Roll on 2020.

Service time

So it is again time for the F355 to head over to Sal at Racing Red for the annual service. No belts this time, but there are few things that probably need doing.

The first is the annoying flakes that have started to appear at the front of car. I think that the whole bar needs to be removed and repainted as the flakes just seem to re-occur.

Another item is probably a complete set of new tyres. The rears have diminished tread and the fronts are getting a little old, so maybe now is a good time for a complete set?

As always, there is rego to do as well. So nothing major, just some tidy up before the New Year. The fun part is always mixing with the day time traffic but hopefully, that won’t be too bad. We’ll see.

Project 458 continues with biggest challenge being strangely, power. The issue is that where the F355 lives, there is currently no power point. For the F355 this really isn’t an issue but for a more modern car, this a big problem as it needs to be plugged it when stationery. The major reason for this, apparently, is that the battery is small to save weight. This means it doesn’t hold charge for long periods. This means it needs to be constantly trickle charged when stationery. This means it is a problem.

I have tried to find some sort of battery arrangement that I can charge elsewhere and then store in the car, but haven’t had much luck. If you know of something, let me know. This limitation therefore kind of rules out my current location for another car. The challenge then becomes where to storage it?

The further away I store another car the less likely I am to drive it. That would be rather a waste of money now wouldn’t it? Then there is also the additional cost of storage. This isn’t a deal breaker but it does start to add up. I also don’t like not having full control of the location where the car is stored. If that now means I need to buy something just to garage another car, that also seems like a waste of money.

Things to ponder.

The seven year anniversary

Here’s the summary of another year’s ownership of a F355. You may want to catch up on previous episodes:

One Year Anniversary

Two Year Anniversary

Three Year Anniversary

Four Year Anniversary

Five Year Anniversary

Sixth year Anniversary

The seventh year they say is woollen

I am happy to say that this year there has been no major issues at all. The biggest one was the replacement of the intermittent wiper timer, which was taken car of at the annual service. A very trouble free year indeed.

Costs

Total expenses for the car this year were around the $8,500 mark. The majority of that cost is the comprehensive insurance, which again was around the $3,000 mark.

The car is due for an engine out service in December 2020 (i.e. not this year), so it is time to start saving because I’ll probably take the chance then to get the springs re-conditioned and the geometry reset. At this year’s service I’ll need to address the recent pain flakes that have started to occur at the front of the car. That will probably mean removing the front car and getting the whole thing resprayed. We’ll see.

Travel

The car has just crossed the 80,000 kilometre mark and is now heading towards 90,000. I have enjoyed some really great runs this year including to Bathurst and Mudgee.

Low Points

As I was returning home from a drive and making the turn off the main road I noticed some large obstruction on the road. In retrospect (which is always great eh?), I should have kept going straight on, made a left and come back around avoiding the object totally. I didn’t however and the object turned out to be a block of course concrete, which I only identified as the car was passing over it. Due to it’s size and low clearance of the nose I heard a loud scrape as I passed over it. The good news is that it didn’t do any other damage to the under side of the car or the mechanics (which it could have) but it did leave a very nasty gouge under the nose. The good thing is that you really couldn’t see the mark. The problem is, it was quite large and I knew it was there.

A few months later I finally got around to at least painting over the mark so it won’t annoy me as much and one day I’m going to need to get the whole bumper re-sprayed. However, until then, the patching is fine.

High Points

The car has performed pretty much faultlessly this year. It has been a joy to drive at all time, especially on country roads. I always look forward to driving it.

Value

The value of F355’s has come off a little in the last 12 months but still remains around the $260K – $280K mark, depending on the model. I expect it to continue to stay around that mark.

Summary

Another magic year with the F355. It is magic to drive every time and I’ve been lucky enough to do some great drives this year. There are few maintenance issues on the horizon, with an engine out service being the main one in about 15 months. I wonder whether I’ll cross the 100,000 kilometre mark by this time next year? Time will tell!

Annual service time

It is the time of the year when the F355 needs to go off to Sal at Racing Red for its annual service and registration check.

Luckily there wasn’t a huge amount that I could think of that needed attention. However, as always there were a few things.

The first issue was the oil pressure readings. A while back they had started to bounce around, sometimes getting up to the maximum of 10 which is always cause for concern. Normally, this is an indication that the actual connection to the gauge is loose. However, after checking no fault was found.

Next up was the decision to change the battery. Having owned the F355 now going on six and half years it was probably a good opportunity to get a new battery. Even though the current battery had never failed to do it’s job, generally best practice is to change the battery every three years. So, now the F355 has a new battery and wow! Does it start quickly now.

There is still an issue with the ride height on the right side. It is more evident on the front drivers side than at the rear. The car still drives fine but it is definitely lower on that side of the car. This is more than likely because I’m the only one riding in it! The sagging issue can only really be fixed by getting the suspension springs ‘re-conditioned’. The best time to address that is probably at the next engine out.

During the last engine out, last year, it was noted that the catalytic converter linings are cracking and will start to dislodge. This will cause the exhaust to ‘rattle’ and indicate that new converters will be required. Having not happened as yet, that will be left until the ‘rattling’ starts to occur.

The most annoying thing that wasn’t working was the intermittent windscreen wiper. I honestly, thought that it was something that I was not doing but as it turned out Part #153095 Windshield wiper motor intermitter had failed. It happens on a 20+ year old car.

This part is located on a panel, right in front drivers nose of the car. A bit of a pain to get to. A brand new version of this would cost around $600 but I got a re-conditioned module for significantly less.

So that was everything I wanted looked at it, however while the car was on the hoist the following was discovered:

Basically, the left hand front sway drop link had come loose from the suspension fork. You can see it here:

The fitting just screws into the lower fork and now a spring washer was also fitted to prevent the same thing happening again in the future. Having this loose affected the ride of the car, with it tending to roll in corners more than it should. Can’t say that I really noticed it but now that I think about it didn’t seem quite as flat during some recent runs.

To fix all of that only took Sal just over a day and I was able to pick the car up with the complete cost being around $1,600 for the lot. A bargain!

As always, there will be things that needs doing down the track but they are not urgent. The most noticeable change now means that the car starts in a blink of an eye now it has a new battery and new starter motor after a previous replacement.

Once again, big thanks to Sal from Racing Red for keeping the car in such good nick. It is very comforting to have such an experience hand to look after stuff that I can’t do.

Looking forward to another year of driving.

The six year anniversary

Another year of ownership of the F355 has come and gone. It’s therefore time to do an update on what happened in this past year. But before we do that here’s all the previous updates for context:

One Year Anniversary

Two Year Anniversary

Three Year Anniversary

Four Year Anniversary

Five Year Anniversary

The sixth year they say is sugar.

So when we left last year’s update the F355 had decided that it no longer wanted to start. Basically, I’d turn they key, the dashboard would light up but no crank. Thought that it was either the alarm playing up or the starter motor.

As per usual, I contacted al DiMauro from Racing Red to get this thoughts and he suggested that it was most likely the starter motor. Now because the car was beached where it was he paid me a visit and removed the starter motor, took that away and had it reconditioned. Thoughts were that after all these years, a good clean up is what it really needed.

After a week or two Sal was back with the reconditioned unit and I was away again. Unfortunately, a few weeks later the same problem began to emerge. Not quite as major, but starting the car was still not as reliable as it could be. By then the car’s annual service wasn’t far away so I delivered it to Sal for him to work his magic.

It was also time for my second major service where the belts have to be changed. This process requires the engine to be dropped out of the car to allow access.

One of the things that Sal noted was that the existing ceramic catalytic converters were beginning to crack and would need replacing soon.

This is simply because of their age (going on 22 years now). It wasn’t something that required immediate attention but would do somewhere down the track. I might look at doing the replacement of these at next year’s service. The cost for two new converters is going to be around the $3,000 mark.

The one thing that I decided to have done during this service was to get the rear bumper fixed. A few years ago I carelessly reversed into a street sign. I then tried to repair the damage myself and I thought I did a fair job, but what started happening over time was the paint I applied started to age and change colour and the repairs became quite noticeable. It eventually annoyed me enough that I polished it back and simply left it until the next major service to repair. The repaired result was immaculate, you can’t even notice it!

Sal couldn’t fault the starter motor and with the service complete and two new rear tyres, I was back on the road again.

All proceeded well for another three months or so and the starter motor began to play up again. I’d turn the key and again I’d get no crank. My biggest concern was stopping the car out somewhere, say getting fuel, and then it wouldn’t start. This didn’t seem too likely as the issues seemed to only appear on a cold start, but you never know.

After another month or two of this happening off and I on I decided that changing the starter motor was the next step in trying to resolve the issue. I therefore took the car over to Sal (luckily it started) and he changed out the starter motor there and then with a new unit.

Since then, the F355 has had an issues. So it turns out that it was the starter motor (most likely the solenoid) that was my problem.

Thanks to Sal DiMauro from Racing Red again for this assistance with resolving the issue and servicing the car again and keeping it such great shape for me to enjoy.

Costs

This year was always going to be more expensive because of the belt change service, two new rear tyres plus rear bumper repairs. Additional costs were also incurred by the initial attempt at refurbishing the starter motor and then replacing it entirely. This meant that repair costs were twice what the annual average would normally be but most of that was expected in necessary repairs. If I look back to year three of the car’s history when I had the last major service, the annual costs are about the same.

Total costs for the car including fuel, repairs, maintenance, rego, insurance came to about $14,500 for the year. As I said, if you take out the major service then it is about average. Outside the major service, the majority of the cost for the year is comprehensive insurance coming in at around $3,000.

Travel

Interestingly, even with the time the car spent off the road due to start motor issues I have travelled more distance than ever before, over 10,000 kms this year in fact! That is about a 40% increase in travel distance from the previous year. The car is fast approaching the 78,000 kilometre total distance travelled representing about 45,000 of distance that I have put on the car in the six years now that I have had it.

I went to the Bathurst 12 Hours this year and drove to and from the track a few times and I have been on a number of nice long runs as well which explains the additional distance.

This year’s learnings

1. As always, a good mechanic is worth their weight in gold. Sal DiMauro from Racing Red has always solved any issue that has cropped up with the car, and how well it is running is testament to his professionalism. I couldn’t enjoy the car as much as I do without his help.

2. Life is so much better when you get the ding fixed that you put in the car.

Low points

Obviously the issues with the starter motor not allowing the car to start. The initial issues were worse because the car failed to even crank but once the problem became obvious it was just a matter of eliminating the issues. IN the end, as typically it does, it took a few goes to isolate the problems but now with a new starter motor everything is back to normal.

High points

The car has run remarkably well. This year I’ve really felt that it is purring along when I drive it. That probably explains all those kilometres that I have put on it this year.

Apart from driving the car the highlight this year for me was being part of Targa Tasmania. I details my experiences here:

Targa Tasmania 2018 – Arrival

Targa Tasmania 2018 – Day 1

Targa Tasmania 2018 – Day 2

Targa Tasmania 2018 – Day 3

Targa Tasmania 2018 – Day 4

During this time I was lucky enough to be co-pilot on a 458 Italia and came away thinking that I should probably get one to add to the stable. Thus, the search is on.

Value

I’ve given up closely watching prices on cars but it is remarkable to see that F355’s are now selling for the $300,000 mark. I saw one go for $360,000 a while back. It is also remarkable that these prices are currently being maintained. Of course, there is plenty of variation in the asking price of cars but the current value is more than doubt what I paid for my car back six years ago!

I’m not worried that my car has probably more kilometres on it than most F355’s. I know that what really matters is the service history, which is good. However, there is bias here in Australia for low kilometre cars and that may affect the value but a real enthusiast I figure will appreciate that a car driven regularly is worth more and is unlikely to have as many problems as a ‘garage queen’.

I’m not interesting in selling the F355 and I also believe that in the long run the asking price for these cars will continue to climb. Let’s see what another 12 months brings on this front.

Summary

Another great year with the F355. Once the starter motor issue was sorted things have been grand. I am also happy that the rear bumper is now repaired and I don’t to look at it every time I get into the car. I can’t tell you how annoying that blemish was and how often it reminded me of my stupidity. Now, no more.

I’m also happy that the value of the car continues top rise, which confirms my initial belief that this was the car to buy.

I enjoyed some great events like the F1 Grand Prix in Melbourne as well as Targa Tasmania, which has convinced me that I need to get a 458 Italia. Now that’s a project I can sink my teeth into for the coming year.