The three year anniversary

Indications would seem to be that this relationship is starting to get serious now that it has passed its third year! As the special date rolls around again, of when it all started, it’s time to stop and reflect on the magic (good and bad) that has transpired in 12 months.

To be totally up to date you should read my musing from previous years here:

One Year Anniversary

Two Year Anniversary

They tell me that the third anniversary is supposed to be leather, so let’s crack on with it!

Costs

Every three or so years the belts on the F355 need to be replaced. This means that the engine has to come out. Yes, that’s right the whole engine has to be removed from the car to do this. The reason is that the belts are next to firewall just behind the seats and the only way to service them is to drop the engine out.

Unsurprisingly, the car has been engineered to do this. So at the car’s annual maintenance it was time to drop the engine out and change those belts, amongst other things. You can read and see the full details here:

My car has no engine

I also took the opportunity, whilst the engine was out, to have the shock absorbers re-conditioned as they were starting to leak. I knew this at purchase but had been delaying doing them until now.

My road usage of the F355 increased to almost 9,000 kms travelled in 12 months! That is about a 20% increase over the past year. My odometer is fast approaching 55,000 kms travelled in total. The road usage of the F335 is fast approaching that of my daily drive as I use public transport when I need to these days as much as I can, so the road usage of both cars is pretty much on par.

Obviously the engine out and the reconditioned shocks are a major expense (more than $5,500 alone) but an important part of the car’s maintenance regime. The cost of the engine out should be spread over the three year life of the belts to be fair, however it certainly made a big dent in the budget this year and escalated maintenance costs way above the daily drive.

However, if you remove this once off cost then the maintenance was only a little more expensive than the daily drive.

The other killer expense is always insurance which continues its slow march north like all insurance. Again, that is an expected cost and in line with expectations.

The totals costs for the year where up to over $12,000 which is about a 40% increase over last year but that main reason for that is the engine out service, otherwise they would have been similar to last year.

Travel

The car has now done about 22,000 kilometres since purchase, completing almost 9,000 this year alone which is about a 20% increase over last year. That averages out to about 170 kilometres per week versus 142 last year.

This year’s learning’s

1. As always, a car like this is only as good and enjoyable as the person who maintains it. For that, there no one better than Sal DiMauro from Racing Red. He was good enough to let me hang around and watch while my engine was taken out and maintained. Best of all, he put it all back together and made it better! Without doubt, the best investment I undertake for the car is to take it Sal. I recommended plenty of frustrated Ferrari owners do the same this year to get their problems sorted. Those that followed my advice, like me, are very, very happy.

2. Some things on these cars are not made with great practicality applied. Case in point, the ashtray. I wrote about it here:

Broken Ashtray

and spent the better part of the year buying a new one, breaking that, putting the original back, fixing the old one, breaking it again, pulling out the original, fixing it using metal reinforcing and finally putting it back. Phew.

Why the hell they made it so flimsy I’ll never know but best point is that it is now sorted and better than it was before. There is always a solution, just might take a while to get to it with these cars.

3. When fuel pump clicks out, that’s it, walk away. See below for the story.

Low Points

Only one major one to speak of and regular readers can probably guess where it transpired. Yes, at a petrol station. Here’s that tale.

I’d taken the F355 to the Bathurst 12 hour with a group of supercar friends. Being February the weather was scorching hot, and I mean really hot. Stupidly (as I am known to be regularly) i failed to protect myself against the blazing sun and managed to get badly burnt. Even the top of ears and back of my hands were smarting from sun damage.

Combine that with a lack of sleep due to a rabid snorer in our shared accommodation over the weekend and I was very much below par. On the return trip home (again in the blazing sun and now with massive sunburn to boot make it 200% worse) I pulled in to get fuel.

In my daily drive, you fill the car until the pump clicks. Then you top it up to the nearest full dollar. I agree it is rather OCD but I’ve always done it that way.

I repeated the same process withe the F355 but perhaps due to the heat, I overfilled the tank. That meant when I removed the nozzle from the car I could see fuel rising up and about to spill out. Damm. I therefore rushed to screw the cap on thinking that would contain the overflow.

After paying inside the establishment I returned to find a puddle of fuel underneath the car, below the filler cap. Turns out that there is an overflow tube at the top of the fuel hose, just near the cap. Thus, all the excess I had tried to force into the car by not stopping at the click was now in a puddle underneath the car.

My biggest concern was FIRE! given the heat of the day and my engine nearby. What to do? What to do? Trying to siphon fuel out wasn’t an option so the best plan seemed to be to ‘drive like I stole it’ to burn off the excess.

Of course, the ONE time you want the road to be clear and the lights to be green they are not. I had to wait to pull onto the road. Then I got caught at every set of lights from the service station to home. The stress didn’t help the sunburn either as I fully expected the car to burst into flames.

However, the good thing was that the car actually didn’t burst into flames or leave a fire trail from the service station, so I parked it with a new lesson learnt – when it clicks, walk away!

High Points

1. No matter what dramas transpire, it is still a joy to drive the F355. Each year there seems to be less and less dramas (although that could be me acclimatising I suppose).

2. Getting to do a lap of the Mount Panorama Circuit at Bathurst while I was at the Bathurst 12 hour with other supercar owners. Here’s the video.

The funny thing was that thanks to following someone who didn’t know the way, I ended up at the end of the pack. This meant the track was pretty empty when I finally entered. We’d been told that our lap was to be a parade lap which meant slow and steady driving. When I emerged onto the track I wasn’t sure whether the marshals were:

A. Waving at me to catch up with everyone else so they could get these cars off the track for the next event.

B. Waving at me to go slower because it was a parade lap or

C. Waving at me because I was driving a Ferrari and they are friendly country folk.

I decided that I’d go with option A unless advised otherwise. That allowed me to travel a ‘tad’ faster than parade speed around the circuit. Simply magic. Achievement unlocked.

3. I’ve been on so many drives and events with the Ferrari Club this year it has been great. Here is a small sample:

but probably the highlight was attending the 488 launch which I posted about here:

The night of the prancing horse

Value

All of this is totally subjective but I think it is still a good indicator. Part of the rationale for purchasing the F355 specifically was the belief that it’s value would increase over time as it became a ‘future classic’. Not the main reason for purchase but certainly a justification for the capital investment. That capital investment requires maintenance (such as the belts being changed) to retain its resale value, like any capital investment.

So the numbers:

The average asking price for a F355 = $ 154,000

That is about a 20% increase since the same time last year. I reckon I could get more for mine if I decided to sell since it has more desirable features (colour, manual gearbox, Australian delivered, new belts, etc). Conservatively, I estimate my car’s value is now 40% above what I purchased it for. Again, I’m biased I agree, but I do try and apply some science to this.

Now if you divide the average price of recent models by the number of cars available for sale you get a rough ‘value index’ for each model as I have detailed previously. The results in order are:

1. F355 = $ 38,5000

2. 458 = $ 19,230.53

3. F430 = $ 13,152.13

4. 360 = $ 9,171.30

Once again the F355 comes out on top by a ratio of 2:1.

Summary

Owning a F355 is special and will always continue to be a ‘different’ experience from a daily drive. However, as our experience together grows we are settling into a relationship that is far more comfortable than it used to be in the early days.

This equates to their being far fewer low points and much greater enjoyment of the F355 and the Ferrari community in general. There is still nothing better than waking early on a Sunday, taking the roof off and going for a blast on an empty road and being back before most people have had their first coffee.

2016 looks like a big year in more ways the one which the potential for a huge bucket list item to get checked off. Mum’s the word until it is all confirmed, but you’ll certainly get the full details if you stay tuned here.

I thank all those who take the time to read my ramblings and I’ll try and be a bit more regular with these posts in the coming year. When you are out driving the F355 as much as I do now you just don’t seem to find the time to sit at a computer and type. However, I do appreciate readers of this blog and followers of my YouTube channel.

Roll on year four.

Broken ashtray

The next thing on my list of items to address with the F355 was the broken ashtray. It had been broken since I had purchased the vehicle.

Basically, the top mould that runs at the base of the ashtray (closest to the rear of the car) had snapped in two locations, as you can see above, basically leaving it detached and floating free which is never good.

The problem is that the moulding at that location is pretty flimsy. The issues is that if you want to work on the centre console you firstly need to remove the ashtray, which provides an opportunity for it to snap. The other way that it gets snapped (as I found out after trying to installed replacement ashtray) is if you tighten the screw holding it in place too tight. Doing that pulls the body of the ashtray down while the top moulding remains seated on the surrounding console. Thus, if the fastened screw is too tight the moulding is being stressed and sooner (in my case) or later it snaps.

The other way that the moulding can snap is when you insert or remove the ashtray cover as this takes a little bit of pushing and shoving to align it correctly and if you are not careful – snap – goes the moulding.

Once the screw at the bottom of the tub is removed the ashtray and the small console to its right will come loose.

To free the ashtray totally you will need to remove the connection (green wire above) at the bottom of the lighter as well as the lamp that runs in the chamber on the side of the lighter (yellow wire above).

With the ashtray totally remove you will see that the lighter is held in place by a metal end cap that houses a spring.

The spring pushed against the underside of the ashtray at one end and against the metal cap at the other keeping the lighter assembly in place.

To disassemble this you need to push the metal housing towards the bottom of the ashtray to compress the spring. While the spring is compressed you should be able to turn the metal housing like a screw.

You will notice that the base of the metal housing is keyed with a number of metal prongs on the lighter assembly that push against the metal housing to keep things in place. Once the metal housing can be rotated, you can turn the housing so these key prongs line up with larger slots in the housing which allow the prong to pass through and thereby release the metal housing from the lighter assembly.

There where some slight differences between the lighter assembly prongs that were part of my car (previous image) and

the replacement I obtained above. Not much difference but my original prongs have a slight indent which seemed to make them sit in their locations better.

Once the metal housing is free from the lighter assembly, you can remove the spring, the lighter assembly and the perspex illumination ring from the ashtray.

The ashtray lid is removed by manoeuvring the arms of the lid free from the guide holes in the tub.

(the arms of the lid have a knob at the end)

(which locates in each of these holes and allows the lid to slide open and closed).

Now you should be left with all the parts separate and nothing attached to the ashtray tub.

If you are going to buy a new ashtray then the part number you’ll need is 64234600, which will include the ashtray lid. Now, interestingly, the ashtray lid is metal while the ashtray tub is plastic. Would have been nice if the ashtray was metal as well because they would have probably prevented the repeated snapping of of the moulding. I’ll have to look into whether I can get a metal duplicate of the tub.

The replacement ashtray I obtained as second hard so the first thing I did was give it a good scrub using dishwashing liquid to get any dirt and dust off it. I then sprayed the tube with silicon spray to rejuvenate the patristic and make it less attractive to dust. I removed my existing ashtray cover, touched up a few scratches with matt paint and then also coated it with silicon spray.

I reassembled the lighter assembly, spring and metal housing. I left the ashtray lid off which have been a mistake in hindsight. I then re-attached the wires and then inserted the ashtray lid. I then screwed the ashtray tub back into place in the car. It was only then that I noticed that the right hand side of the moulding on this replacement ashtray was also now snapped through and the left side was looking like it wasn’t far away from doing the same.

I therefore loosened off the mounting screw, thereby hopefully relieving the pressure on the, as yet, unbroken left hand side. So the replacement ashtray is in but I’m also back to square one thanks to not being careful enough. Annoying.

If you look closely at where it has snapped you will see that it is not very sturdy at all. In reality, it isn’t a case of if it will snap, it is a case of when looking at the construction.

So I now have my original snapped ashtray out of the car and I’ll try and work out how best to mend it and apply that learning to the unit that is in the car now. Simply gluing the pieces together will only allow the situation to re-occur. I need to come up with some simple and small reinforcing arrangement that I can easily implement with the unit already installed in the F355.

Annoying, but these are the things you learn with cars like this. I’ll post back when I have a solution that works.

My car has no engine

Every year around this time the F355 has to go in for its regular annual service and registration. Over the past few years I have a number of issue taken care of at this time as well. Last year it was the CV boots which you can read about here:

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

This year was going to be different because it is now time for the belts to be changed for the first time under my ownership.

Every 3 years or 15,0000 kms it is strongly recommended that the timing belts be changes on the F355. This is not so much to do with belt wear but more to do with the fact that they stretch. When this becomes extreme the belts can slip a cog which could mean the timing valves (running off the belts) get out of whack which is very bad for the engine.

Here’s the view looking at the engine from the seats back. Wheels 1 and 5 are for the inlet valves and 2 and 6 are for the exhaust valves. Both of these run off a separate belt as you can see.

So there are three belts that need to be changed along with generally wheels 4 (idler) which provide tension on the belts. These idler wheels tend to wear over time and should also be replaced as part of the service.

You now need to remember that the above view is looking at the engine from the cabin. This means the belts are effectively right behind the seats. Thus, the only way to change these components is to drop the whole engine out of the car.

Most people are horrified when you tell them that the service requires this, and it can be a nasty surprise to a new owners who doesn’t know but luckily I was well aware of this fact. Dropping the whole engine out does have plenty of benefits in that it allows to examine and access every area of the engine quite easily. Given that basically with a Ferrari you a paying for an engine and getting a car thrown in, it makes perfect sense.

So, it was off to Racing Red to let Sal work his magic on the car. However, before the engine could be removed I also wanted to shock absorbers reconditioned.

if you look at the photos taken during the pre-purchase inspection you will see that the shock absorber was leaking at the top. This was evident on the right rear and luckily had not deteriorated further but now was the time to get it sorted. This meant the shocks needed to be removed and repaired first.

With that done, up on the hoist went the F355 and out came the engine. Well, there was a lot more to it than that but it really didn’t take Sal that long to free the engine (with me as an interested spectator).

Engine from left rear.

Engine from right rear

Right side of engine.

The good news is after removing the covers and inspecting the engine everything was good and in fact quite clean. There are few extra minor things that need to done such as remove an unused hose clip and fixing the handbrake bracket (which had been reversed) but all in all nothing untoward which is a relief.

The only surprise turned out to be the insides of the airboxes where the paint had bubbled away from the surface and simply flaked off. That would mean cleaning as much off as possible, priming and respraying the inside of the airboxes prior to re-assembly. Not a big deal but now is the best time to take care of this.

When I last left the car the engine was still out waiting to returned to the car. Once that is complete all the fluid need to be replenished as well as everything reconnected and checked. There are also a number of smaller hoses that Sal changes because after a number of years they perish and having them do so as you are driving home is no fun. Better to change these before they become an issue!

I plan to pick up the car early next week when there less traffic. Yes, this service will be expensive but normal standards but changing the belts every three years is required to keep the car running optimally, prevent premature failure and above all maintain its value. I therefore have no issues with having this service carried out every three years as required.

So with re-conditioned shocks and a full serviced engine I am looking forward to the drive improvements and I’ll post all the details when I know shortly.

The two year anniversary

As I move into the third year of ownership of my Ferrari F355 it is once again time to step back and reflect on what has transpired in the previous 12 months.

You can revisit my musing at the one year anniversary here:

https://blog.lovethe355.com/2013/09/the-one-year-anniversary.html

So let’s get on with a wrap for the paper anniversary.

Costs

Maintenance costs for any sort of supercar are always going to exceed those of a ordinary road car. Now the most interesting thing this year is that I drove the F355 over 7,000 kilometres which was a 48% increase on what I did the previous year. This was directly reflected in a 48% increase in the amount of fuel I used, so no surprises there.

Interestingly, that usage is about 60% of the usage of my normal road car. Total maintenance costs for the Ferrari fell below $9,000 for the year which was about a 9% decrease over the year prior. That figure also included the cost of insurance which is the major running cost of the car. This year I switched insurers after shopping around (and going through some renewals dramas).

Over the twelve months I did not make any major improvements to the car, unlike the previous year, so the totals costs all up for everything associated with the car was just over $10,000 which was 40% less than the year before.

Travel

The car has now done about 12,500 kilometres since purchase, completing over 7,000 this year (a 48% increase over the previous year as mentioned). That averages out to 142 kilometres per week this year verses 100 the year prior.

This years learning’s

1. As last year, the number one thing you need to have with cars like these is a great mechanic and luckily Sal DiMauro from Racing Red is just that and his assistance in the prior year once again proved invaluable. Answering my questions during my panic with overfilling the car with oil was just one example of what a great job he does. So if you need Ferrari mechanic, Sal’s the man.

2. The car won’t dissolve when you take it out in the rain. Although driving in the wet is far from being the most pleasant experience with the F355, it doesn’t prevent the car from working! After a number of trips in the car this year in quite heavy rain I have shattered my preconception that it only works when the sun is out.

Low Points

1. Backing the car into a road sign and splitting the bumper.

2. Overfilling the oil level.

3. Insurance woes

4. The car getting over sprayed by a fire extinguisher.

High Points

1. Every day I get to see the car. Whether under a cover or from behind the wheel, I thank my lucky stars every time.

2. Finally taking the car onto the track.

3. Road to Sydney Cavalcade.

4. Ferrari Racing Days.

The year ahead

The end of this calendar year will be a major maintenance appointment for the car. It will the engine taken out and serviced and the timing belts replaced. This has always been a know quality with the F355 as it needs doing every 3 years or 15,000 kilometres. I will also probably take this as the opportunity to get the shock absorbers refurbished as they have been showing signs of wear. All this won’t be cheap but it needs to be done.

I see the car doing more kilometres given the number of outing that the Ferrari Club is undertaking. This is also in part due to my increased confidence with the car and the realisation that it isn’t going to ‘fall apart’ just by being driven long distances.

Summary

Owning a Ferrari F355 still challenges me but I am finally beginning to be more comfortable with driving it. I doubt whether I will ever be as casual about driving as I am with a normal road car but another year’s worth of driving the F355 has greatly increased the comfort levels.

I also think that ‘repairing’ the bumper that I cracked has overcome much of the fear I had about doing something ‘wrong’ to the car, simply because I DID something wrong if you know what I mean. Actually sanding, filling and painting the car has perhaps removed that ‘pristine’ misconception I had about the car. The difference this year is that rather paying someone to fix a problem (like the dent I previous put in my door) I had a go at fixing it myself. Although far from perfect, I was rather proud that it turned out as good as it did. Most importantly, I learnt a lot throughout the process.

I have been on so many amazing drives this year where it was simply a pleasure to put the roof down and just drive along. Doing so has allowed me to experience some great scenery as well as interact with some great people from the Club. That, above everything else, has made the previous twelve months ownership more than worthwhile and something I’m so glad has happened.

The final note is a thanks to anyone who reads or follows along with this blog and my YouTube channel.I need to get back to making more videos which I promise to do soon. Hope you have enjoyed another year of ‘entertainment’ and hope you’ll stay with me to see what transpires in the coming 12 months.

The above video is what I reckon is my best one for the year.

Final coat

After the last repair episode I had applied the first coat of paint to the injury.

I now applied a second coat of paint, waited a week and then applied a coat of clear coat to the area. I found that the clear coat did cause some of the second coat to come off which was a concern.

I made sure that injury had a good coat (perhaps a little too generous with that upon reflection) of clear as well as applying it over some other minor scuffs in the area.

You can see the final before and after shots above. Although far from prefect I am very pleased with what I have been able to achieve having no knowledge at all of how to fix this issue at the start.

With that in mind, here are my learnings:

1. Beware where you reverse so this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the first place. A little bit of caution on my part initially would have avoided this whole thing.

2. Mask the area off using masking tape.

3. Sand back the affected area using 300 – 600 grit sandpaper. 1200 grit will work but you’ll spend a lot more time sanding if you do. You will also probably get better results if you use a machine but you’ll need to be very careful about not taking off too much but I think a machine sander will provider a much smoother overall finish that by hand.

4. Fill the crack. No matter how small it looks you should fill it. I think resin is a better bet however that will generally leave a bulge which needs more sanding back. A filler, like bog, will probably be easier to apply and leave a flatter finished surface resulting in less sanding later. If you do use resin DON’T use the nozzle from the applicator but use a skewer stick to apply the resin into the locations you want. A toothpick is too small for the job in my experience.

5. Clean and sand back before every coat. This ensure a good bonding surface for the next layer.

6. Allow the layer you apply to thoroughly dry. In my case I learnt to leave it at least 7 days!

7. Less is more. You can apply too much paint, too much clear coat and sand too much. If it looks like it is enough then walk away, you can add more later if need be.

8. Be patient. This process will take a while given the need to have everything dry properly.

So where to from here? I’ll touch up a few areas, especially the edges of the repair, and apply clear coat to a few additional spots I painted last week under the car for completeness. I think the final stage of the repair would be to give the area a good polish using a rotary polisher. That should remove some of the bumps I can see in the paint repair as well as blend it a bit better. This doesn’t have to be done immediately as I want to get a dual action rotary polisher but practice doing paint correction on another car before I take the polisher to the F355.

The other job I’ll now look at doing is repairing the other scratches and chips the car has (mainly underneath the front bumper). No need for sanding there. All I should have to do is clean, paint and then apply clear coat. Easy!

Now there are still some hairline cracks in the rear bumper but for the time being I am going to leave those as I don’t think they are worth trying to fix at this stage. Maybe down the track after the area has been polished I will re-evaluate. So all in all a good learning experience and a good (if somewhat imperfect) result.

Filler required

Now that I deemed the proof of concept repair to be enough of a success I decided it was time to start on the main event.
I therefore worked to tape up the location of the crack and then sand it back.

I then used the paint from the paint repair kit and the result came up as you can see above. I was pretty impressed with how clean it looked. However, there was a problem. As you might be able to tell from the above picture the crack is still plainly evident (you should be able to click on the picture to enlarge for more detail).
What I really should have done immediately after sanding it back was to fill it, but I got impatient and rushed into painting it.
Another lesson learn then, so I went off to Bunnings Hardware to buy something to fill the crack.

In the end I settled on some Loctite 5 minute rapid repair epoxy resin (figuring it was a better option for fibreglass and the car than ‘bog’). I was going to go with the 60 second version but I thought I’d need to do some podding and poking of the adhesive so having 5 minutes instead of 60 seconds to do this was a good idea (which it turned out to be). Also, the 5 minute product has a higher strength rating. So that sealed the deal on which product to use.
I return to the car after about 7 hours and attempted to start sanding back again. Unfortunately, I discovered that the paint had not dried completely (probably because of the cold weather). If I touched it it left finger marks. Damm, didn’t figure on that now did I? What I should have done is leave well enough alone and let it dry further but no, impatience got the better of me and I started sanding again. Bad move. The sandpaper kept catching and the not so dry paint just clogged the paper. Again, I should have taken that as a hint but I continued (when will I learn?). It also probably didn’t help that I was using 1200 grit rather than 600.
I managed to sand back the left hand side of the crack (the larger gap) but gave up trying to the hairline crack to the right. I thought I’d give it at least another 24 hours to dry.
So I come back 24 hours later and commenced sanding again. The paint was still grippy but I persisted. It would have probably have been better to use the 600 grit rather then 1200 like I was since it would cut more but I was by now a little gun shy so I persisted with the 1200 grit until the crack had been sanded back along its length.
The whole area doesn’t look at good as when I sanded it before painting it so again, I should have filled it then rather than rushing to paint. Just need to chalk that up to another learning lesson and be more patient.
With the area now sanded as much as I could take using the 1200 grit (sanding is no good for my lack of patience), I activated the repair epoxy.
One repair item that I did discover when visiting someone during this period was a set of wood food skewers. They are much better than toothpicks. They are longer and have a pointed and blunt end. I swiped half a dozen of these to use in my repairs and I’m glad I did.
I put the nozzle on the epoxy and pushed the plunger. The idea was to use the end of the nozzle which is was fairly fine, directly onto the crack. Problem was, the nozzle was not fine enough and I would have ended up dripping the epoxy everywhere. Plan B. I therefore reverted pack to the cooking skewer which proved very successful. I scooped the epoxy from the nozzle onto the pointy end of the skewer and ‘painted’ it across the crack.
I touched up a few locations with some more epoxy and checked that I had covered everything. With the mixture on and around the nozzle hardening I decided it was time to walk away for the day (see I am learning ever so slowly as I REALLY did want to add more epoxy).

The end result is the picture you see above with the adhesive covering all parts of the crack. I waited another 5 or so minutes for it to set and I packed up.
The question now is how long do I wait? The adhesive is supposed to take 24 hours to set completely but the temperature is much cooler than average so that means I’ll have to wait longer. That I can do. So let’s say I wait 48 hours and the adhesive is set. Do I sand it back and repaint immediately given that I will be taking the car out for weekend?
Sure I’d like to get a first coat on it before I head out BUT given that it didn’t feel 100% dry after 48 hours, am I better off waiting until the car is parked after the weekend and then apply a first coat? That way I have a whole week to wait for it to dry? Or do I take something like a hairdryer to the paint?
Of course if I don’t apply the first coat and take the car out the untreated area will get dirty and need to be cleaned before the first coat.
Decisions, decisions. However, I can’t proceed forward until I see the state of the adhesive after say 48 hours. I’ll wait till then before deciding what course of action to take.

Proof of concept

To address the issue with the cracked bumper I did some research on the Internet and came across this site:

https://www.touchuppaints.com.au/

They basically sell a range of products designed to help repair basic bumps and scratches. Their site is a little hard to understand at first but basically their preference is for you buy their complete repair kit (BTKW37).

This seemed like a sensible enough idea, since although it was probably more stuff than I needed it would allow me to fix issues on some other cars. The cost was around AU$160 with shipping and insurance. The most important thing you have to do when ordering the kit is nominate your car colour. The site provides plenty of details on how to find that information as well as plenty of instructional videos. You then simply select your colour (my Rosso Corsa 300/12 was there) and order the kit based on that.

The kit arrived very quickly and contained all the items you see above so it is pretty comprehensive.

The main thing I needed for my proof of concept was the body paint but as you can see there is whole range of products here that can help you with scratches on plastic as well as paint, so therefore the kit looks like pretty good value for any repairs like this.

As I mentioned in the previous post, my starting point was going to be an attempt to repair the inside of the bumper near the muffler as shown above.

Part of the process would be involve sanding and this I wasn’t real sure about. So again, armed with some answers from the Internet I went out and bought some 1200 and 600 grit sandpaper. Basically, the higher the number the finer the grain and the less ‘cut’ it makes. My plan was to start with the 1200 grit and fall back to the 600 if needed.

Sanding the location proved quite challenging given the shape and the confines.

After sanding the location back and then cleaning it off I was left with the small mark you see above.

The paint from the repair kit comes in a nail polish type bottle with a small brush attached to the cap to make it easy to apply. The main issue again was really access to the location to actually get in there and apply the paint.

I made sure that I also covered the exhaust so not to accidentally ‘repair’ what didn’t need repairing.

I now left the paint to dry and when I looked again later you can see the result above. Obviously much better but I was disappointed that you can still see the crack. Clearly, more sanding and perhaps some filling is required. So, even though the crack felt smooth after sanding there was clearly still a ‘valley’ that perhaps rather than sanding should be filled and then sanded for the best results? Not exactly sure what product to use to fill this but that shouldn’t be hard to determine.

I tried retouching the crack directly using a toothpick to drip paint right into the crack but that didn’t prove very successful. I think that was because the pointed end of the toothpick wasn’t holding much paint. Upon later reflection, I thought that perhaps I should remove this point and simply have a circular end, which should hold more paint.

Part of the issue is also access to area to fully repair it so rather than get caught up in that I decided to step and judge the proof of concept a success. Firstly, I think the 1200 and 600 grit sandpaper will limit the amount of ‘damage’ I can do while still creating a smooth surface. The paint from the repair kit matches the car colour, which is a big plus. Finally, I now have some experience in the whole process so I feel ready to tackle the main scratch. I can always come back and redo this crack near the exhaust when I do the other part of the bumper.

The main crack will be much easier to access so I should be able to sand that back much better. I’ll need to tape off the area to limit any ‘boo-boos’. It will also require more sanding and perhaps also require some clear coat (again, comes with the paint repair kit) over the top?

I know that the repair isn’t going to be as smooth as the rest of the bumper and I am pondering the best way to remedy that. I’ll need to see what the end result is after my attempts before I decide but I think I might have to go over the affected area with some cutting polish to bring it all back to being level with the undamaged portion of the bumper.

Anyway, that is down the track. I’m happy that the proof of concept was a success, that I have all the items I need to complete the repair and that I have some experience now. Onto the main event now!

Colour confirmation

If you have been following along with this blog you’ll know that last week I managed to back the F355 into a road divider, mark and split the rear bumper (Damm!). You’ll find all the gruesome details here:

Look before reversing

So my starting point is the above right after the fact.

First step was to give the car a good wash and see if I could at least scrub off the black marks. As you can see from the above shot I was successful in doing that. So, this becomes the new starting point (and I feel a little bit better).

The next thing that I needed to confirm was the paint colour. You find the plate for this under the rear engine cover as shown above.

As suspected, the car is Rosso Corsa Fer 300/12. Knowing this will allow me to order a bumper repair kit with the right colour.

So, the plan of attack is now do some research on fibre glass sanding and order a bumper repair kit. I’ll test the colour of the kit on a few scratches I have elsewhere that are inconspicuous. After that I’ll have a go at repairing the fibreglass inside the bumper next to the tailpipe.

That way I’ll be able to see whether I have the right technique without it being too obvious if I don’t.

So, off to learn about sanding fibreglass.