Since my last post on the BiTurbo, there has been quite a lot of activity.
After a good few weeks at the amazing West Coast Classics, the car was running well and everything seemed fine. I drove it up to the Scottish Italian Car Day and after about 50 miles it started to drop power momentarily under load again. That's not very reassuring so I brought it home and planned to take it back down to James and Ollie for them to take a look. At the same time, a few hard to get parts had shown up so it seemed like another few weeks with them was on the cards.
In the interim, i was very busy working so a few more weeks passed by without the car turning a wheel. Then I saw a gap in diary and booked it in.
Although the battery was on trickle charge, I thought I'd give it a warm up and make sure all was well for the drive to the workshop.
Uh, oh. Turned the key and nothing. Dead. No lights, no clicking, nothing. So I wiggled every wire I could find, fitted another battery and still nothing. Time to call for recovery...
Once the car arrived at West Coast, the boys set to work looking for the electrical gremlin that was causing the issue. Traced to faulty wiring into the fuse box. Not easy to find but easily repaired!
Then onto the main jobs.
Carb - Resolve the carb issues that caused the loss of power as well as struggle to start. This was a monster job in the end and required 2 Chinese rubbish carb refurbishment kits (both failed after 10-15 minutes installed) then a custom built kit coming from Weber in Italy. It's a difficult task as the carb is situated inside the plenum chamber so lots of removal/re-installation required to get this right. At the same time, the boys resolved the starting issue which was caused by the car instantly flooding as a tiny float in the carb was being restricted by some grit. Again, not easy to find but rewarding once resolved. Tuned and my word is it now a different car! Wow! Full of power and I'm now confident with reliability.
Glass - replaced nearside glass and repaired window mechanism. Owners of BiTurbo era cars will be familiar with the windows coming off the runners if the glass is fully lowered. Solved with some craft stop inside each door made of very expensive 2x4 wood offcuts! Amazingly, Maserati never properly resolved this right up to the Ghibli II and Shamal. The glass on mine mad numerous chips on the top edge as the only way to lift it when it drops into the doors is with pliers! Of course, the chips lead to wind noise etc.
Fog Lights - Fitted and repaired factory wiring. My car came without fog lights but with wiring and brackets so I knew they had been removed at some time.
Gearbox mount - managed to find a specialist mount from McGraths which stops the box from vibrating terribly. My mount was worn and so the vibrations were interesting to say the least. Again, not easy to fit but very rewarding once completed.
Clock - I had what I thought was a genuine Maserati gold clock installed. It didn't work. Upon researching, I discovered that the BiTurbos has a Vegia digital clock and early cars were not offered with the traditional gold clock. I also learned that my clock was not a clock at all but just a face stuck directly to the dash with mastic of some sort. So, I sourced a clock via Lenny at Auto Italia in California and now have the correct one fitted.
So, now it's running amazingly well and I'm so pleased with the results. It's a good car and really getting under my skin. Plenty of smiles per mile.
There's more jobs planned including:-
- Lenny has found me a manifold heater which is a device that uses the heat from the manifold to warm the systems during cold weather running. Mine was blocked with silt and corroded beyond repair.
- We now have a lovely fuel spell on acceleration which I think is the fumes rising up the filler neck as the fuel sloshes around. The suggestion is that the vents in the tank need looking at as well as probably a new
fuel cap as there is no rubber seal to speak of. I love the small of unleaded (with old car additive) in the morning.
She's looking good, don't you think?