February 2015, the 318 being rebuilt (again)

The catastrophic failure of the (new, freshly-installed) Clevite bearings of the 318 V8 of my 409, at St Moritz in 2013, was temporarily fixed by Marco and Andrea Gordini just fitting a pair of new bearings without even removing the crankshaft. Well, this 'temporary' repair was done just to drive the car back in the garage waiting for the right parts to fix it. At the end, everything worked so well that during 2013 and 2014 we travelled by 409 to Villa d'Este, Poltu Quatu (Costa Smeralda) and many other places without any problem. I could have driven that car forever, probably, on those 'provisional' bearings. But Gary Pavlovich, who is the real 318 Guru and a gentleman, kindly supplied me a new special crankshaft and bearings, so I couldn't resist the idea of making the V8 as good as new (or better). The Gordinis have removed the trusty 318 once again....

Everything looks reassuringly 'oily' in these pics. Apart from the b***dy bearings, everything is OK

The crankshaft that Gary Pavlovich kindly supplied me is, in the above pics, the one nearer to the camera and looks VERY good. The Gordinis, who really know USA V8s, were delighted to see how well the oil passages have been machined. The above pic shows, in the red circle, the part of the old crank were the defective bearings were.... the scoring on the metal is still evident

9 March

The engine has been reassembled and is now waiting for a thorough valve gap check (they apparently were too tight) before being reinstalled in the 409. The purple pillbox is definitely NOT a small special air filter for the Carter 3131S

18 March: on the road again. The V8 sounds good, and pulls like a train