Before installing the repainted radiator it’s time to treat the front with new paint and StoneChip. We will do an antirust treatment under the nose and to access it we took off the front bumper.

Having removed it all I saw she took a hit on the driver’s side in the past. I have recorded this in my Mondial’s maintenance book and this hit seems to be from at least 20 years back if not earlier. I do need to replace a frame piece since it is beyond sanding possibilities and weld in a new piece. I always suspected she got a hit as there was an odd space on the bottom between the front fender and the door, but that is the charm of a classic car. It has stories!

 

Repainted the horn and polished the aluminum bits.

This is how it looks like after having removed all the rust and repaint with StoneChip and Black paint spray. New foam in place to keep the incoming are flowing directly through the radiator.

 

And the radiator is in! Perfect fit!

The road conditions are not that great in Italy with all these little bricks hitting the radiator of the Mondial. During one of the last trips on the Germany highway we had 15km/10miles of work in progress where dust and stones were in the majority to punch into to front. I also noticed the temp went more up when standing in queues compared to previous trips.

I was scratching my left ear when I took out the radiator.. at least 20% less cooling IMHO and was impressed that the elements of nature took so much force on it the last two years. When I bought the Mondial a few years back only 5% was affected.

While we are at it I will dissemble the front and paint the tubular structure. I also discovered that the Mondial took a small hit on the driver’s front wing, which I suspected already when I did the buy. My thought are now confirmed. Funny how you get to know your Mondial when you take bits and pieces off for repair or replacement. It’s becomes your second soul.

Anyway here is the damage of this moment.

 

Now my coolant liquid was pretty clean when I tapped it first time, but you can see on the photo below that you need to get a new core at some point or at least dismantle it for cleaning. Pieces of rubber from the past of a bad cooling hose and other large debris clogs in the openings of the channels. This is fairly normal for a radiator that has done service for 30 years.

Old core vs the new core. The top and bottom elements of the old radiator are re-used.

 

There are several styles of a core. The original radiators were made in Spain.

1. Very Expensive:
   Regular cooling. Original Spanish way with fine cooling blades, but very fragile.
2. Expensive:
   Better cooling. Italian way with fine cooling blades, but still very fragile.
3. Regular price:
   Best cooling. German way where the main purpose is to have a good flow and cooling and is less refined on the outside.

It’s difficult to find a good specialist and the moment you walk in with radiators for a Ferrari the cash register starts ringing when they ask for which brand. I went back to old connections of my old man and advised me to go to Bijl Radiators. A small business in Haarlem, but highly knowledgeable with 60 decades of experience. The moment I took the radiator out of my trunk without the Ferrari stamps visible The elderly gentleman said “That’s from a 328 of Mondial”. That gave me reassurance that I was at a good place. They gave me the options above. I asked him what he would choose. One word “German!”. Ok, then it will be German!

Revisie

A re-cored radiator maintained with original stamps.

The smell of unburned fuel during warmup and greyish smoke when warm when hitting the throttle. Yep this lady is clearly drinking too much! We all know that smoking and drinking is not good for your health, that applies to cars as well

Most workshops tend to fiddle around with the mixture setting to correct it. “Correct it” are in my opinion not the correct words. It is camouflaging the real problem in most situations.

The first thing I do is pulling the plugs to read them. For my drinking lady they looked like the first photo.

Knowing I deal with an old car the mixture setting on the CIS is most likely not the problem since Ferrari already put it on the correct mix and somewhere a long a long the way something changed, that is, you could have guessed.. ..rubber..! All kind of small micro vacuum leaks influence the drinking behavior of your engine.

One way is to detect them is with brake cleaner and a more expensive way is to do a smoke test. I am neither fan of these if you are dealing with a car that is over 25 years of age, perhaps break cleaner if you know what you are doing without inflaming yourself so be careful with using that method.

A smoke test is not cheap and if you read out the spark plugs you most likely already have your answer anyway. I’m in favor to spend the money on new rubber, which in the short run will save you money.

So on which rubbers did I spend money to get the lady off her drinking problem.
1. All the vacuum lines that go to and from your throttle house, check valve, and airhouse. I call this small money. Not more then 30 USD (20 euro) including clamps.
2. This one is a but more challenging. The plenums that are between the air house and the intake manifolds. A bit more work and the plenums are each 20 USD (15 euro) you have 4.
3. Since you have the lot of anyway you better continue to replace the rubber o-rings of the injectors as they have been sitting there when the Mondial got it’s first owner. This is small money too, but you will need to take off the intake manifolds thus replacing the intake manifolds as well, which are around 30 USD (20 euro) a piece and you need 2.
4. Replace all your injectors with new ones. They cost 40 USD (25 euro) a piece and testing them for this money does not make a lot of sense.

Looking back what I have done and the result and findings the lady now runs properly and is not drinking anymore. Looking at the spark plugs now they look healthy and that without touching the mixture settings at all. Like I said it was already set correctly when it was new.

So what did I discover:
– Hard vacuum tube (possible leak)
– Deteriorated plenums (definite leak)
– Square injector o-rings. (when wiggling the injectors by hand you created a definite leak)
– Broken intake manifold gasket. (definite leak)
– New injectors (No leak, but possible poor spray due to wear since they are mechanical)

Money spend:
Approx 500 USD (400 euro)

So reading out your spark plugs and spending 500 bucks, saved me money on a smoke test and the lady is running more economical

While I had the intake manifold of anyway I replaced the o-rings of all the injectors in case of any vacuum leak together with new injectors of Bosch. The top ring is new and the old has become square after 27 years.

 

Like I mentioned in my previous post on of the coolant tubes was leaking. The tube was in bad condition, but the union too that went into the T joint pipe. Needed to take of the intake manifolds to be able to remove the T joint pipe. Replaced the union (part 106241) with a new one after drilling it out and re-thread it. This union is often leaking because of the corrosion. The costs of this little piece of aluminum.. a staggering 170 euro.

 

 

The Mondial ran to rich in fuel and on some occasions it was not running smooth. Actually for all older cars one should replace all the rubber as rubber seal, hoses etc will not last 30 years. I will be doing it in stages and after this I will be doing the fuel tubes from the tank. My suspicion was right.. I had a leaking plenum. Four new seals and the problem is solved. However, I ran into a new problem. A cooling tube was leaking that was in between the intake manifolds under the air house. Since I have the lot of I decided to replace the coolant tube as well.

I have been looking a long time for a set of original Ferrari Mondial wheels. A set came available in Belgium. Hopped into the car to have a look. Arrived at the scene they came with reasonable good tyres to drive around for a month or three. Got them for a good price, 1200 Euro. They do need new Ferrari batches. No bolts included. I understand now why. 1 original chrome bolt new will cost 199 euro and one needs 20. Do the match. I will fetch some steel bolts and buy chrome caps. This way I also have no rust problem on the chrome.