Ferrari Mailing List: Heard back on the self-levelling suspension...

[Dennis Liu (bigheaddennis]

Howdy.  First off, thanks to the great advice from lots of folks - very much
appreciated!

Spoke with the shop where the car ('95 740iL) is at right now.  Asked him
about the suggestion to just cut off the corroded part of the line, and
flare in a bit.  "Every bit of that line is as rotted as what you saw; there
is nothing at the leaking end that I could flare onto.  And the other end of
the line is just as bad, so if we tried to replace the line, we'd almost
certainly have to replace the blocks on each end.  That's why I wanted to
warn you that it could get really expensive."  (I'm paraphrasing, but I
think that's mostly right.)  

I then asked him about plan B - going with a conventional rear suspension
setup.  He said that he's done them on earlier Bimmer, no problem, but
hadn't done it on an E38.  The concern is how/where to plug the hydraulic
system, so it doesn't affect the power steering.  He added that he knew that
Bavarian used to sell a kit, for the older cars, but did not know what would
work on the E38.

So then, at Bob Alexander's suggestion, I called up Steve Haygood, who was
*very* friendly and helpful.  Said that NEW parts (shocks, springs, mounts,
a couple of bitsas) would probably total somewhere between $400-$525, which
isn't too bad.  He thought that labor would be anywhere between 3-4 hours,
given that I was up in Boston (ahem :-).  As for how to deal with the
hydraulics, Steve suggested that a simple brass plug with some teflon tape
right at the power steering pump should do the trick.

So...  My options:

(a) spend the $700-$900 for the conventional suspension, and run the car for
as long as it keeps running (or I hit the next stumbling block).

(b) Do the same as (a), but try a couple of boneyards to save a couple of
hundred on the parts (it's got 200k miles, so any used parts are almost
certainly newer, right?), but is it worth it?  

(c)  Sell it to the next guy with $2k in cash (or best offer!) and the skill
to do the work himself, then go buy something from that long, endlessly
debated but entertaining list....

Again, all thoughts are welcome!

Grazie,

--Dennis
(the wife weighed in prefering an E61 or E39 Wagon... I got the hint...)
Bostonish