Ferrari Daytona & Lamborghini 350GT - Remedying 2 classic Italian V12s | Tyrrell's Classic Workshop

well hello and well another turell's classic workshop in this one we're going to be problems as it happens they're both Italian v12 s1 a Ferrari and one a Lamborghini but they're they're not happy at all that they're they're down on cylinders both of them for various reasons which have yet to be discovered so one by one I'm going to bring them back to life get them running on twelve pots again and taking them out on the road and making sure that they're doing what they should be so let's have a look at the first one this is our first Italian v12 it's our old friend and chassis number 109 the fifth production Lamborghini ever built it started life as a 350 GT which by the name of the model meant it was a three and a half litre v12 engine which is as Giotto Bertolini originally intended the engine to be or designed it to be what the Lamborghini engineers john palo de lara and paul Austin San Lee did was to turn bits Arrhenius design into a stronger more Hardy unit because the three and a half liter wasn't fantastically reliable in service the cylinder block was sort of there or there about in terms of strength but it became apparent that in long term service it didn't really work properly without a bit of improvement so what they did in 1966 was bring out the four liter engine the 400 GT and and what happened was cars such as this when they went back to the factory service department they said to customers look we've got this wonderful v12 engine which produces more power and is more reliable why don't you let us swap out the three and a half liter engine for the four liter engine and it'll fit perfectly because it's like for like virtually and a lot of people did and there are some 350 GTS still going around with their original three and a half liter engines but many that went back to the assistance are said of ISA the sort of customer relations department of the factory actually have this modification and this car is one of them and the beauty is because these cars are so light and this engine develops allegedly 305 do brake horsepower or three to five depending on who you talk to it's a lot of power for a 1400 kilo car in the 1960s and a lot of cars just couldn't compete with the Tustin martens weren't really developing that sort of power and neither dare I say it were road-going Ferraris the the 275 gtb was developing within six carburetor form sort of its ultimate iteration about 270 brake horsepower and then when the four cam 275 came out in 1966-67 it was developing 300 brake horsepower so this was faster than the equivalent Ferrari an Aston Martin at the time it actually went like the wind with the four liter engine in it but this car unfortunately is not going like the wind at the moment it's come in before we start taking the car apart to restore it I just want to see how it actually drives on the road I need to do a mechanical assessment of it so that's what we're up to at the moment we've dug it out and I haven't even attempted to get this car running properly yet so the reason I suspect for the misfiring is nothing more than fouled up spark plugs the risk of stating the obvious if the spark doesn't jump between the electrodes on a spark plug you get no spark you get no combustion the cylinder is simply a very very petrol in a very horrible resistance to all the other cylinders that are working not what you want so we're just going to have a look at this I can normally through various tricks bring quite often cylinders back to life by just treating the engine in a certain way so what we do is warm it up very gently keeping it at about 1500 rpm so the engine is revolving at a reasonable speed it's not idling and it's not racing but we'll get some heat through the engine and the spark plugs can actually start to work again they can self clean and sort themselves out and you'd be surprised how much this happens and I'm very reluctant to just blanket take spark plugs out of engines and put them back in again because every time you do that you're slightly wearing the thread in the spark plug aperture in the cylinder head and in fact on these engines the spark plugs are not easily accessible at all it's it's people's natural tendency and situations such as this to think that term taking the car out on the road and driving it will actually sort the sort of missing cylinders out but it doesn't quite work like that spark plugs of funny beasts they do need a bit of TLC to to bring them back to life again and if you put me if you drive the engine too hard put it under too much load or just sort of let it idle it they won't come back to life that there has to be a certain technique to this so and that's what I'm going to utilize and you never know he might come back on twelve or we might be stuck with ones that don't work but it's certainly the right thing to start with so let's just start her up get her warmed up this the first time this has happened to it to the car for quite a while and just see how she responds we've warmed the engine up and a couple of the cylinders have chimed in again so I'm guessing it sounds to me like it's running on about eight now the fact that there's popping and spitting coming out of the exhaust is a good sign because that means that the spark plugs are trying to work inside the combustion chambers so what I'm doing is sort of working my way around the carburetors now just sort of very roughly adjusting them so that they I can tell which cylinders are working and which aren't and through this process and the engine has sort of warmed up even more it's come to light even more the popping and spitting is stopped and some more cylinders have chimed in so we're up to ten cylinders working now and I'm going round the engine and I've ascertained that it's the back two cylinders on the right-hand side of the engine that back car breath is actually not doing anything coincidental at they happened to be next to each other because they're getting fuel so they wouldn't would normally blame the carburetor if two cylinders are coming from the same thing but it's not it's just pure coincidence in this case and I'm lifting the HT lead off with some chicken pliers as they're called plastic pliers because I don't particularly want to be electrocuted when the HT shorts out through me as a pro to the spark plug so I'm pulling the leads off because if I pull the leads off so that the spark has to go somewhere else and then gently introduce it to the top of the plug leaving a few millimetres gap you can actually hear that cylinder working because the spark plug is put being put under pressure with a jumpring spark more than a spot that's permanently connected it sounds weird but it works so I've done that with the last two leads on the right hand side and I'm ascertained that the other 10 cylinders are now working satisfactorily I'm pretty happy with that but we won't know for sure until we fix these two so I'm going to actually take the two plugs out of that and put a and you've got a new thought plug in each of those cylinders and that should really make a difference to the engine now and to do that I'm using this this is a genuine Lamborghini factory spark plug socket from 1970 and the reason why I have to use this is because the wall going down to the spark plug in the engine is extremely thin and there's hardly any material on this and they're designed that way I don't know why Lamborghinis made the the spark plug bores so small but they did they're excruciating ly difficult to get out these plugs but there we are handily we've got one of these so I'm now going to take those two plugs out replace them and let's see what difference that makes it's very very important to feed these in very carefully Whittle very light you see I'm using very light finger pressure to make sure that the plug actually goes into the thread nice and nice and easy we don't want any cross threaded spark plugs thank you very much again just a very delicate touch let's try and get the plug started get it happy and there we go just nip up the compression washer not over tighten and now we can put the leads back on and this should make a dramatic difference we should have a v12 Lamborghini again and this engine is quite warm and this lead does not want to go on which is not a good combination then we go let's see her how she sounds now [Music] [Music] and now finally I'm just going to I over adjusted this carburetor opening to feature those two plugs and I'm now going to back this off to equal it back with the others and she should smooth out and slow down nicely there we have it [Music] that sounds better well now that we've had a good look round and sort of got things back to life again I'm going to just give the car a run and see how it performs on the road it's the purpose of this is before we start stripping the car massively to do the restoration on the bodywork etc and prefer to know that she's mechanically sort of up and running and able to do what she's supposed to do and so if she doesn't if I find that there's some faults then at least we can notify them now on the job sheet and then fix them as we go but let's see if the engines back on 12 cylinders on the road let's hope so off we go I can tell immediately she's pulling really nicely from low down yeah she's pulling crisply so I think we're all right I don't know when the last time it was running on 12 was but it doesn't take long really to contaminate spark plugs if if they're in a hostile environment being started shunted round moved engines are designed to warm up properly and then be driven of this era and if they don't have those sort of ideal conditions if they're started and stopped it doesn't take long for them to start complaining normally so we'll see how we get on I mean I'm very happy with this is pulling she's smooth slow down there's no no kangaroo petrol so let's let's see how we get on on the road oh she sounds very sweet yeah everything it should be really very nice now the brake servos are sticking the brakes is sticking on which is not great there's two brake servos and they're mounted at the front of the boot behind the back seat so I'm not going to try anymore the brakes are free enough now I can feel them yeah she's freewheeling so before the brakes get warm or before I have to use them again we'll go back to the garage but we've proved that at least the engine is is it's alright it's pulling like a train actually in very smooth I mean that's pulling away from a thousand revs and she's as smooth as silk so all right chick in the box that you know the breaks are free again now no resistance so we'll just take it back to the workshop oil pressures as it should be the Italian oil pressure gauges are generally electric so we don't tend to believe everything we see with those we check them with a mechanical independent pressure gauge a tree plug into the engine and but if I have any concerns about oil pressure obviously I wouldn't be driving it at all but the oil no she sounds mechanically quiet the oil pressure is is five kilograms per centimeter which is fine we'll just pull straight back in again but at least the engine is it doesn't really do them any good to be firing on less than all their cylinders the bores get washed and things will wear out more quickly so from that point of view I know that we were on safe ground now if we need to to start and drive the car so I can start to make a list out I can feel that the steering wheel is off-center the bitter play in the clutch pedal things like that so that will all be noted down and dealt with and we can take the car apart and do whatever needs to be done a few people have commented on this car in the in the videos previously and in Harry's garage videos actually this is a Ferrari Daytona it's a right-hand drive example it's not an original factory Daytona Spyder it was done in the mid 70s shortly after the car was new by streaming in California to very exacting standards actually it's not that different to the original benefi rina job that they did they only made seven right-hand drive factory Daytona spiders and a car in this color combination and at Sorel Dean Norma Talas otto with the beige the light tan interior if my memory serves me correctly was an exactly colored car one of the original seven was owned by Pete Townsend from the who but this car is a top top as its called but it's still a beautiful example it's done eight thousand six hundred miles only from new and that's documented and genuine so it's one of the lowest mileage date owners in the world as I say it started as a coupe a then it was converted but the car still drives fabulously well we did a restoration job on this car about five or six years ago it came in as black with black and red leather we color changed it back to the original factory color which is a beautiful Pininfarina it was part of pinna Farina's original color palette for the date owners in period and we also made the interior back to the Connolly original color the car is actually for sale so we've dug it out because we try to keep the cars in a state of readiness at all times and I like to dig them out every so often and just make sure they're up to snuff really brakes aren't pulling all the usual maladies suspension isn't seized engines behaving and this one is not it's not really very good it sounds okay but it's got no power whatsoever so I'm going to just start it up and let's see what it sounds like before we go any further [Music] [Music] at first sounding she sounds okay it's it's picking up reasonably well it's smooth enough but it's ticking over far too slowly it sounds labored I mean a Daytona should really crack when you pop the throttle it should be absolutely gulping air in and really revving quickly for so big an engine it's got quite a light flywheel which means that it spins up really quickly so it sounds to me like it's down on one bank one complete Bank of six cylinders I've come across this before each Bank has its own ignition system it's basically two six-cylinder engines joined together what that's what this engine is as with many v12 and the ignition systems are autonomous they're completely separate apart from the electrical feed that's it that's all they have in common everything else the whole the whole system the low tension system as it's called the high tension system it's all in two independent so I'm just going to have a look at the start with the basics have a look at electrical feed it's not going to be very much because the last time this car ran it ran really well but the problem is did we leave it like this it's going to cause damage it you've got unburnt fuel going through the cylinders the engine which is not great the the plugs get fouled up the spark plugs and stopped working so I want to nip this in the bud now and let's see if we can get her back working as she should so I'm going to start by just looking and inspecting the ignition systems on each bank [Applause] well I'm dealt a little more deeply into this and it's the it's of that bank that are not working it's all six cylinders at remarkable at an engine concerns who sweet really only running on half of it so and I'm going to work my way back through the ignition system and see if I can get it to to actually burst in to chime in I'll start with the low tension system first as I said I'm sure it's not much it could be a rotor on that's gone down inside the distributor it could be a bad electrical feed but I'll just start with the basics and see if we can get a result well I've found the problem and it is the low tension side so it's the electrical feed to the distributor and somebody over the years has put this rather nasty electrical connector on the wiring which was actually intermittently making it well more breaking the making actually so I'm going to change out this connector here put something better on it it's amazing because that connector could have been there for years but it's just suddenly started playing up fortunately have come across this before on them over the years so not the specific thing but banks going down and causing this problem so we'll change that out we'll try it again and see if that hopefully it hasn't affected any of the spark plugs and damaged caused them to stop working but one step at a time let's get it back in working first there we are that's a rather more tidy repair so we'll see how the engine sounds now hopefully better well if only everything in life was as simple as that the world would be a very happy place struck lucky there really but there we are we'll give the car run now to make sure that she's you know it's been a while since this car's been used so I want to make sure she's in tip-top order so let's go and hear what the engine sounds like in action and in anger on the road we've got readings on the water temperature she's almost as well she is up to the oil temperature and engages off its seat witches saw the ball you can hope for really in the daytime unless you're taking it down the motorway or very very high speeds because nearly 15 liters of engine oil in a Daytona and it's remotely located it doesn't really get warm that easily so we're just about to open her up and let's see if under load she's still running she's nice on 12 now she's booting Allah let's see how she responds when I open in terms [Music] [Music] yeah she's fair all right running nicely on throughout bullying like a train just as a Daytona should these cars have got such big lungs I mean this was the fastest production car in the world it was around in the late sixties early seventies and again we'll just try again just because we can [Music] oh yes it's amazing the difference an engine that's properly on song makes in a car - it makes or breaks it driving a v12 it's running on nine or ten cylinders these companies the whole car feels popped down it's obviously unhappy the heart of the machine is not beating properly and it makes such a difference for this to be you know for the v12 to be running on 12 cylinders and sometimes it's not easy for people to detect whether they're running on - one or two it could be a v10 and still be very quick and still sound great but you know when it when it's on 12 there's nothing like it [Music] [Music] this is settling down that shock absorption getting warm the breaks warming up a bit this is I'm gonna do the litmus test now on a Ferrari v12 road engine of this era they should if they're tuned for any well under percent tall from 1500 rpm if you floor the throttle so or there abouts it's not easy to do of course immortal traffic [Music] that's 50 [Music] yeah that's great very good very good good to go went to her old self well that concludes another turell's classic workshop I hope you've enjoyed it it's been sort of a bit like a day in the life of I suppose you could say if you have enjoyed it please keep watching please like keep subscribing please recommend it and I want to say a big thank you to Harry at Harry's garage vids for getting me on my way with this and also thank you for everybody's really encouraging comments so thanks very much and look forward to the next one

Channel: Tyrrell's Classic Workshop

Views: 376,116

Keywords: Iain Tyrrell, Tyrrell's Classic Workshop, Classic Car Expert, Classic Car Restoration, Classic Car Insights, Classic Cars Cheshire, Lamborghini, 350GT, V12, Ferrari, Daytona

Id: YB9BrhlV7fY

Length: 29min 44sec (1784 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 18 2020