A Nice Day for a Stampede

This past Saturday, following the monthly gathering of “Cars and Coffee”, several local Ferrari and Lamborghini owners gathered for an organized drive, coupled with a photo shoot for a local luxury lifestyle magazine—QC Exclusive.

Getting 15 or 20 cars together for an organized drive, or rally, is a lot of work.  Unfortunately, the frequency of rallies in our area is infrequent.  Most of the organized rallies are in the central or eastern part of NC (the FCA President lives in the eastern part of the state).  Driving six hours (three hours to and three hours fro) to participate in a one hour event makes about as much sense to me as ear lobe grommets.  It’s the classic “Raleigh/Charlotte debate”…

Stepping off my soapbox and before I forget, many thanks go out to Kevin Fielden and Brian Caughman for organizing the drive and the folks from QC Exclusive for documenting our day.

Here are just a handful of some of the great cars from this Saturday’s rally and photo shoot:

A nice comparison of the styling differences of the 308 (foreground) and the 328 (its successor):

This is a beautiful example of a 328 in something other than Rosso Corsa (Ferrari "Racing Red"). This 1986 328 GTS is shown in a very unique Azzurro Metallico.

This is a very rare car that everyone was delighted to see in person.  One of only 500 ever made, this 1972 Ferrari 365 GTC/4 is coming off of a fresh restoration and really "stole the show".  

Here, a 1990 348ts (foreground) and a 550 Maranello.

A Lincoln County deputy sheriff was dispatched to see "what all these cars were doing" at one of our rally photo stops.  He was blown away by all the cars and was very cool about us borrowing a photo op spot in Lincoln County.

All the cars are lined up for the last photo shoot of the day.

 An assembly point for a photo op.  1985 308 GTSi QV (Euro-spec) front-left.  1985 Mondial Cabriolet (right).  1995 Lamborghini Diablo VT (behind the 308 QV).

This has to be one of my favorite shots of the day.  Don't ask me how I did it...just know I wasn't "texting" at the time...

Finally, no rally is complete without some in-car camera footage.  Pardon my "shaky" shots, but it isn't easy changing gears, adjusting the radio, making a sandwich, tweeting, joining a conference call and waving to onlookers all while driving.  Of course, I'm kidding.  All photos/videos were taken with extreme care and caution.  Safety first!  Please, don't text and drive!!!

Until next time, "Keep er' between the ditches!!!"

The Grecian Formula and Other Advanced Mathematical Topics

Remember those ads in the 90s for “spray on hair”?  What were people thinking?  Really!!  I mean, come on…you’re getting a little thin on the dome (we all do) and you want to give it a nice blend because you have a hot date!  Pull out the Krylon…Matte Black, of course, and get after it!  Just hope your hot date doesn’t want to rub her fingers through your hair or give you a nice scalp massage.  If so, you better have some Wet-One’s handy!

So what does “spray on hair” have to do with cars?  Well, it knocks on the door of a sensitive subject…turning gray.  (I’m going somewhere here, folks…stick with me).  Not the graying of hair…but the “graying of hoses”!  (Two paragraphs and 11 sentences of complete and utter bull $#!t later and I’m finally on topic…cut me some slack…I’ve been busy and haven’t posted in a while!)

What do we do with those unsightly gray hoses?  Well, we dye them!  One of my judges at the National FCA event in Savannah last year gave me this tip.  I performed the tasks a few weeks ago, documented the process and wanted to share it with you…the paying customer. 

Before you say anything, I know my valve covers are red.  I know they are not supposed to be red.  I like them red and will change them back to “stock silver” before my next concours judging, but the red really does look sharp.  Anyway…

Graying hoses…give your ol’ engine bay a good once over and look for those fabric-braided hoses that might not be quite as crisp black as they used to be.  (Honestly, in the 328 and 308 there are going to be some you can’t get to without taking off the plenum).  I just addressed the vacuum hoses that were easily accessible and blatantly visible and will address the others buried deep in the bowels of beautiful Italian engine plumbing at a later date.

The dye I used was just standard Rit Black fabric dye.  You can buy this at any retail store. 

Remove the hoses you wish to dye, grab a small ladder (to hang the hoses from), some old cardboard/newspapers (to keep the dye off of your garage floor/driveway), some white thread (to tie the hoses to the aforementioned ladder), something to pour some dye in, a handful of Q-Tips (to act as mini-paint rollers/brushes) and GO (start working).

I removed the hoses one at a time and tied them to the ladder using the white thread.  I used an air hose to remove as much surface dirt as possible.  Then, simply poured some dye in a Red Solo Cup (you know….someone should write a song about those cups…you can use them for anything!), dipped my Q-Tip and started dying. 

You can see how the dye was absorbed into the fabric on the hose and really brought back the richness of the original hose.

This hose even had letters/numbers printed on it (keeping with the theme of not simply dying over something ‘original’), I used a toothpick to cut-in around the letters as not to just sloppily dye over them.  The end result came out really nice.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the end result.  It came out nice...trust me!

I also took this opportunity to clean up any hose clamps that might have had a little corrosion.  I let them soak overnight in Griot’s Rust Remover.  I’ll admit, I was skeptical of this product, but it did a nice job.  The original clamps freshened up rather nicely. 

I let the hoses “hang out” and dry for a couple days before reattaching them to the engine.  When reattaching, some of the dye came off on my hand (but not enough to even make a difference in the appearance of the hose).

The end result:

We went from a "Mitt Romney engine bay" (well put together and distinguished with a little gray in the right places) to a "Wayne Newton engine bay" (well put together and distinguished with absolutely no gray to be found).  Basically, a few hours of work took 15 or 20 years off my engine bay!  Unbelievable!! 

What did I learn from all this?  Ron Popeil was a marketing genius and Wayne Newton has undoubtedly solved The Grecian Formula…

Until next time, “Keep er’ between the ditches”!!!

Ferrari 328 Interior Restoration Series: Part 4

This is the last post of a a multi-part series on a project I tackled to restore the interior of my 24-year-old Ferrari 328 GTS using products from Leatherique.  Throughout this series, I’ll give you some background and show you the “before” condition of the leather.  I’ll walk through the Conditioning and Cleaning process, the Re-Dying process and, finally, show the end result.

I hope this series as much fun to read as was the actual restoration work (and seeing the end result).

Part 4:  “I look really good after I dyed...”

Several months have passed since my last update.  Since then, we’ve attended a couple car shows (including the 2011 Ferrari Club of America (FCA) Meet in Savannah) and spent a lot of time traveling. 

As Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, I finally have some time to update the series on re-dying the interior of my Ferrari 328 using products from Leatherique.

Just to recap, the entire interior of the car was dirty, faded and very tired.  However, the leather was in remarkable condition (including the driver’s seat bolster—which is notorious for being extremely warn).  My goal was to restore the leather without impacting the color of the stitching.  I also wanted to restore the leather to its original color.  Referencing the Original Ferrari V8 book by Keith Bluemel, I ordered dye from Leatherique based on the color code.  When I received the dye, I noticed it was too light.  I proved this by cutting a swatch of leather from under the center tunnel (where UV fading is not an issue) that showed the leather in its original color.  I sent the swatch to Leatherique where they gladly re-tinted my dye to a perfect match. 

This photo shows the first round of dye compared to the swatch (in an inconspicuous area behind the door pocket).  

Once I got the dye color straightened out, I began prepping for the dye.  This included several applications of the Prepping Agent.  You know it is working when you see old dye appear on your white terry towel (purchased in a bundle at Lowe’s).  

Remember, the key is to break up the existing dye on the surface of the leather so the new dye will adhere.  Removing too much dye will likely remove the grain of the leather, which is part of the lure of the old Connolly leather in these classic Ferraris.  Prep with caution…once the grain of the leather is “sanded away”, it’s gone forever.

Once everything was prepped, I began the ever tedious process of cutting in around each and every stitch with a hobby brush.  This proved to be very effective and not too difficult.  It just took a steady hand, lots of patience and many evenings and weekends.  

If you look real close in some of the pictures, you’ll notice a white material on the seats.  That is the Crack Filler (insert plumber jokes here) sold by Leatherique.  It basically is a pliable, dyeable spackle-like material that lets you fill in cracks, scrapes or other imperfections in your leather and then dye it.

I have to admit I was a little skeptical using this product.  However, using toothpicks and an old credit card, I found it very easy to apply and make it look correct.  Toothpicks to apply, the credit card to run across the surface to get it level with the surface.  I followed with light (very, very light) sanding to make certain there were no bumps in the surface.  (Just like you would fill a nail hole in drywall with spackle).  This process might require several evenings to allow for adequate drying time between applications. 

Once everything was cut in, the process of “wipe dying” began.  This involved using the dye, thinned with bottled water.  Basically, “stir” the dye according to the instructions provided by Leatherique.  Pour some into a plastic container (I'd recommend only using containers from Bojangles...just have your cardiologist on speed-dial) and thin it slightly with a cap full of bottled water.  I found it also helpful to slightly dampen the white terry towel I was using for the dying process.  This allowed me to apply the dye in very thin, even coats.  Remember, too thick and you get the “Tammy Faye Bakker” look—which is not necessarily too appealing to Concours judges...unless one of your judges is Jim Bakker... 

To speed the dying process, I would use a hair dryer to dry between coats.  This allowed me to apply several coats in one sitting.  The thinner the coats, the more natural the dye looks on the surface. 

So, after the hours of cleaning and conditioning very tired, dry leather, repairing a couple minor scrapes, “cutting in” around countless stitches and applying several light coats of dye this is the end result:  

Door Pockets (one dyed, one not):

Seat Backs (one dyed, one not):

Driver's Seat (Before and After):

Here are some photos of the car being judged in Savannah.  The car didn’t win an award, but showed extremely well.  The car scored in an award range, but wasn’t the highest in its range (thus, no award).  It’s easy to feel defeated when so much time is spent bringing a car back from the dead and not winning an award.  Yet, being judged provides a “punch list” of items to address with the goal of bringing it back for another judging. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the re-dye process and have learned something along the way.  For this project, on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being “I’m the kind of person that rebuilds transmission in my sleep”, one being “All I do is put gas in my car”), I’d give this project a difficulty level of 4.  It’s not overly difficult, but requires patience, persistence and a keen eye for detail.   

In the upcoming months, I’ll try to keep more current with product reviews and, although there are tons of blogs that cover paint correction, maybe even walk back through the steps of prepping the paint for the FCA National Meet in Savannah.

Until then, “Keep er’ between the ditches”….

Hard Drive Data is Back

After several months of back-and-forth with local individuals, we finally bit the bullet and sent the hard drive off for recovery.  It required a "clean room" and very specialized equipment to recover the data.

In the next couple weeks, I'll get some photos of the leather restoration posted.

Lesson learned...."additional media" is cheaper than "recovery"...have multiple copies!!

Check back for more leather interior restoration pictures!!

Ferrari 328 Interior Restoration Series: Part 3

This is a multi-part series on a project I tackled to restore the interior of my 24-year-old Ferrari 328 GTS using products from Leatherique.  Throughout this series, I’ll give you some background and show you the “before” condition of the leather.  I’ll walk through the Conditioning and Cleaning process, the Re-Dying process and, finally, show the end result.

I hope this series as much fun to read as was the actual restoration work (and seeing the end result).

Part 3:  “Live and let dye…”

Due to the failed hard dive, I haven’t been able to post for the past several weeks.  The pictures I wanted to use that actually showed how I did the leather re-dye will take some time to recover.  Lesson learned….back-up, back-up, back-up and back-up some more.  But the blog must go on….

Luckily, I had never dyed the ebrake handle on the 328.  In preparing for the 2011 Ferrari Club of America (FCA) national meet, I needed to re-dye the emergency brake handle to match the rest of the interior.  One evening—in final prep of the car for transport to Savannah—I had my wife take a couple pictures over my shoulder. 

To refresh your memory since my last post on the re-dye process, you may recall me saying, “I wanted to preserve the original color of the stitching at all costs”.    This involved a painstaking process of “cutting in” around each and every thread of every item that was dyed (seats, door panels, center console and so on) with a small hobby brush.  Then, using part of a white terry towel, I filled in around the stitching with several, coats of dye that was thinned considerably with bottled water.  All in all, the re-dye of the 328’s interior took nearly three months to complete (yes…..three months during the winter).  But, that is only working a couple hours per night, three or four nights out of the week and eight to ten hours each weekend (but not every weekend).  I could have airbrushed the dye on in a day, but the integrity of the stitching would have been compromised.  My goal was to take this seemingly forgotten 328 and bring it to concours condition.  The only way the interior would be concours quality was to re-dye using my “hybrid method” of wipe dye (borrowed from Mike Charness) or completely replace the hides that covered the entire interior.  I felt if completely new hides were a “10”, my re-dye job would have to be a solid “9”.  (Remember, the condition of the leather was good…very limited wear and no rips or tears…plus, this was not a color change…just simply refreshing the color to its original “unfaded” state).

Now, that said, these pictures show how I cut-in around each tread.  Then, once again, I took the dye and thinned it down a bit with bottled water and began the process of “wipe dying” the leather—basically, filling in around the stitching with several very light, thin coats.  I did this until the area I was filing in with the thinned dye matched the color of the area applied via brush next to the stitching.  I used a hair dryer to dry each coat so I could immediately apply another.  I don’t recall the exact number of coats that were applied, but, again, keep applying until the area cut in with the brush and the larger area blend together.  The entire re-dye of the ebrake handle took a couple hours (including prep, positioning the seat to get to all of the leather surface that needed attention, placing plastic around the handle over the carpet, the actual act of re-dying, getting my wife to shoot a couple pictures and clean-up). 

A close-up of the meticulous process of applying dye via a hobby brush to the leather surrounding each stitch. 

A slightly different angle.

A close-up that is a tad out of focus (but you get the idea).

You’ll probably ask, “How did you get dye around the threads without getting dye on the threads?”  The answer is simple:  “Very Carefully!”  Taking time to do the job right (three months!), being patient and breaking the work up in manageable chunks certainly helped the cause.  Did my hand ever slip?  Sure!  But, it was very minimal and in places that you’d likely never notice.  A steady hand, some good 80’s music and lots of free time were key to the success of this project.

Hard Disk Failure Update

Well, as it turns out, Geek Squad shipped off our external hard disk to their specialty facility in Kentucky.  They contacted us and said they were unable to recover the data and needed to escalate the issue to “Level 3 Support”….which means, they want $1,700 to attempt to recover the data (with no guarantee of success).  We are actively searching for a “local” person to attempt a recovery.  We think we found someone…but we just need to get the drive back home.  The drive contains every photo we have ever taken since 2008 (including the ones of the leather redye process).  There is one final piece (the handbrake handle) that needs redyed.  I can document that process and take pictures (keeping them in two places this time!). 

In the interim, keep your fingers crossed that we can get those pictures back.  Not only does the drive contain the leather restoration pictures, but also all our vacations pictures and—most importantly—several pictures and videos of our little dog, Kellie, that we lost to cancer last year.  L

Ferrari 328 Interior Restoration Series: Part 2

This is a multi-part series on a project I tackled to restore the interior of my 24-year-old Ferrari 328 GTS using products from Leatherique.  Throughout this series, I’ll give you some background and show you the “before” condition of the leather.  I’ll walk through the Conditioning and Cleaning process, the Re-Dying process and, finally, show the end result.

I hope this series as much fun to read as was the actual restoration work (and seeing the end result).

Part 2:  “It rubs the lotion on its skin…”

While carefully removing the seats, door panels, center console and tunnel, all the fasteners and knobs were placed in plastic storage bags and labeled. 

Once everything was removed, I brought the seats, door panels and all the bits inside and set-up shop in the laundry room. 

After buying a pack of white terry towels, I began the cleaning and conditioning process.  The first step was to remove all the surface dust and contaminants by vacuuming the seats, door panels and other bits using the dust brush attachment.  This pulled most of the loose dirt out of the cracks and crevices, but the ground-in dirt and years of skin oils still remained on (and in) the leather. 

After thoroughly vacuuming the items, I applied a light coat of Prestine Clean and wiped with a terry towel dampened with warm water.  This removed, yet, more dirt, but the leather was still visibly filthy—right down to the pores of the hide.  This also revealed the condition of the color of the leather.  Time and UV rays had taken its toll.  There was significant fading on the exposed surfaces of the leather.  I knew then for the job to be done right, we would have to ultimately re-dye the interior.

It was winter and everything I read about using the Rejuvenator Oil stated it was best to apply the it on a sunny day and roll-up the windows to create a “steam room effect”.  With the car in one place and the seats in another, I had to make other arrangements.  I accomplished this by using the laundry room and an electric space heater.  Since the laundry room is a relatively small space, using the heater, I was able to get the room to around 110 degrees.  That’s not quite the same as a closed-up car sitting in the sun, but in the dead of winter, it would have to do. 

I cut a plastic cup down to make a smaller plastic cup and used that to hold the Rejuvenator Oil.  While wearing clear (dye free) latex gloves, I generously applied the Rejuvenator Oil with my gloved hand and rubbed / massaged the oil into the leather.  On a seat, for example, I applied the Rejuvenator Oil.  I then turned on the space heater and closed the room.  I let the room heat up and remain heated for four to six hours.  The next night, I repeated the Rejuvenator Oil application, indoor steam room effect for a similar amount of time.

Why the heat?  The heat (from a closed-up car or small room with a space heater) effectively relaxes the fibers of the hide and lets the Rejuvenator Oil soak in and do its magic.  Think of it like this, your skin naturally secretes oils to keep it moist and pliable.  Once the cow that blesses your car’s interior met its maker, the secretion of those oils ceased.  When the Rejuvenator Oil is applied, you are actually replacing natural and essentials oils back into the leather.  The Rejuvenator Oil also works deep in the pores of the leather to help “push out” any foreign oils (like the oils from our skin), dirt and grime. 

So, after a couple application cycles of Rejuvenator Oil (generously apply the oil, massage it in, heat and close the room for four to six hours), Prestine Clean was sprayed onto a clean terry towel (that had been rinsed in warm water then wrung almost completely dry), then the terry towel wiped across the leather to remove the Rejuvenator Oil (and all the dirt that it helps remove).  Several towels were used in this process, but they wash up for reuse with Tide, bleach and hot water (no fabric softer ever on any car towels...period).  The results were amazing! 


Can you tell which half is clean and which half is still dirty?

A little closer look...

A real close look!!

However, I did notice that some of the dye was being removed when wiping down with Prestine Clean.  This, combined with the UV fading I already noticed, confirmed a re-dye was in my future. 

The seats were really dirty, but came clean relatively easy.  The door panels, on the other hand, were a different story.  You may recall in my last post an extreme close-up of the dirt and grime in the pores of the driver’s door panel.  Chalk it up to 24 years of sweaty arms and dirty hands.


Here's the extreme close up again...

These panels gave me the most trouble.  I put enough Rejuvenator Oil and Prestine Clean on those panels to float a battleship!!  After hours of rubbing, I just couldn’t get the leather clean like I wanted.  George at Leatherique and I swapped e-mails.  He suggested I use a soft bristled brush.  I tried an old toothbrush first, but the handle angle wasn’t conducive to this kind of work.  I found a scrub brush that I could easily hold in the palm of my hand and began to very gently brush the hide.  The bristles worked the dirt, sweat and grime out of the pores of the leather and left a very clean result. 

A little closer... 

Here is a shot of all the trim pieces that needed cleaned (and will also need re-dyed to match the rest of the interior). 

Here is a close up of part of the center console.  Note the how the original color is intact where the knobs and switches attach to the console, but all the surrounding areas are faded.

When researching how to do this process, you'll probably run across articles that mention wrapping the leather in plastic when the Rejuvenator Oil is applied.  Some say this helps keep the oil from evaporating.  I had a couple conversations with the folks from Leatherique and they really dispelled this myth.  The only time plastic should be used is if the seats are still in the car and you apply the Rejuvenator Oil, then need to move the car around.  You certainly don't want oily pants, so you can put plastic on the seats to move the car in and out of the garage.  One EXTREME word of caution....(coming from the folks at Leatherique)....do not (stress, DO NOT) use black plastic garbage bags to wrap any leather item.  I won't get into the reason on this forum, but do some research....you might be amazed as to the reason.  I certainly was!!


I will have to admit, though, that I did wrap some parts in clear kitchen plastic wrap.  You could definitely see the oil evaporating and adhering to the underside of the wrap after sitting in the homemade steam room for a few hours.  However, I really couldn't tell a difference between the parts that were wrapped and the parts that were not wrapped.  So, if I had to do this process again, I'd probably not waste the plastic wrap. 


The next part of this series will document the painstaking process of re-dying the leather.  The process itself is not difficult, but can be very time consuming.  Especially, doing it the way I did.  Stay tuned for the next part of this series…..


(I sure hope the Geek Squad can recover the contents of our hard drive so I can post some pictures of the re-dye!!!)