Some nice Pics

James took some nice pics of the Maser while we had it out to play.

You can see the new spoiler that I added to the Biturbo.

It wasn't all fun and no work; we did get the water pump for the air-to-liquid intercoolers connected and filled the system up.








I also took the GTV6 out for a spin and it was fantastic, as usual.

Machines

Sorry to keep you waiting - this is too much of a contraption to not be seen (pics from pbase.com).

800 HP AWD Ford Fiesta - Pike's Peak

Black '76 Most Recent Run

So on our way back from the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, Angela and I stopped in to visit Derrick and Sarah...and the Lancia brood. They were wonderful. And Derrick and Sarah were OK too. :-)

While not an official 'working' visit, Derrick and I managed to get a bit of diagnostic work done. Ange jumped into the Black '76 and fired her right up. For this cold-start, we had Ange pump the gas pedal once completely before starting the engine. I think this activates the choke, but that might be just a bunch of thought fragments smashing into one another to create an idea.

Anyhow, the car ran really well. Previously the idle seemed to climb over time, but with this running, it seemed to hold at about 2k rpm. However, it never dropped to what I would consider a normal warm idle. There didn't appear to be any burn-off of coolant, though there's maybe a bit of oil burning on-throttle.

Noted:

• Coolant hoses seemed to all be getting hot
• Passenger side coolant hose to the radiator got hot (we stupidly didn't check the driver side)
• Minor seeping from the radiator
• Radiator fans failed to come on at the standard 87 degrees Celsius
• Fascinating array of switches with unknown uses below the driver's side dash
• Brakes have no pressure whatsoever

I ordered a pile of stuff from Vicks and The Monte Hospital. Hopefully that stuff should be ready for our next work session. At which point, we should (fingers crossed) be able to get the car registered, insured, and road-tested! WOOO!

At last!!

Rick came over and helped me bleed the Maserati BiTurbo clutch. Amazingly it worked!! We took the car out and for the first time I was able to finally drive the car with a working clutch and working steering. As I got heat into the exhaust, the air / fuel gauge I just installed started to work and was stable in the stoich range as I was on the throttle. The boost was set to 5psi after the intercoolers were in the air flow (but not yet flowing coolant). The next step will be to finish the intercooler install, get an alignment, and set the boost.

Replaced bushing, new problem replaces old

I replaced the old bushing, which you can see was a complete mess.


The new one looks real nice.


But before I could even enjoy the fresh steering, I found a few new problems.

I got in the car and started it up and the clutch was always disengaged so I couldn't get any power to the wheels. I took out the slave cylinder and it was stuck open. So I took it apart, cleaned everything, and confirmed the seals were OK. I then replaced the part that makes contact with the pivot arm so that the cylinder inside would sit closer to the back wall keeping this from happening again. I then tried to bleed the system, but, since I was by myself, this proved difficult.

I ended up worrying that the master cylinder was bad. So I decided to take out the master cylinder and give that a rebuild also. While doing that I noticed that the spring on the clutch pedal was broken.


So I welded an arm on to the side and put that back in place and it's working well. After I rebuilt the master cylinder I put everything back together, but I'm still having difficulty bleeding it. I'll have to wait for help.

* If not documented in this service manual wiggle part till it works

As posted before, when the starter on the Biturbo stopped working I looked in the service manual and there was no documentation. The solution that finally worked was to wiggle the starter before I tightened the bolts. After I had the Biturbo engine running again, I decided to install an air/fuel gauge.

While I was sitting in the car all of the electrics suddenly died, the fuel pump, the lights, the dash, everything!

First I checked the fuses but after replacing a few that were missing the problem persisted. The next thing I did was to find the electric section of the service manual and the only thing in there is a child's drawing of the electrical system with every wire drawn with the brown crayon, where as they hired a professional artist to do 30 pictures of the cylinder head.

The Maserati Biturbo has a design flaw in the connectors on the printed circuit board inside the fuse box. So I removed the fuse box and Jim and I spent half a day trying to understand the internals of it. After hours of connectivity tests it appeared that everything was working fine. So we put it back in, connected everything up and the gauges still weren't working. After playing with the connectors pulling them out, putting them back, and wiggling some around, everything started working again.

Timing Belt Vendor #1 Finally Delivers

So, long ago, I ordered two timing belts. We had just gotten our first set of Scorpions back from VA, and all things were rosy. As part of our plans, I wanted to order a few timing belts so that we might replace the potentially dry-rotted one that had been sitting, static, on the Scorps for over 10 years. Now, let me step back a second and say that, despite the 'common knowledge' that Italian part vendors and mechanics are all temperamental and cryptic, I've had nothing but excellent experiences.

That said, I've now encountered the much rumored non-communicating and delay-packed Italian parts vendor. It was a few weeks after I placed my order, having heard nothing from the vendor confirming my order, that I went out and ordered from Vick's. I then contacted Vendor #1 and asked why I hadn't gotten a confirmation and a general "So, what's up with my order?" The response was an epic "We sent you a confirmation email weeks ago." Period.

Ooookaaay. So my response email went something like "[Angry thoughts redacted] Well, I've not gotten anything, can you please resend it?" That email was met with all the silence the internet can muster. Every piece of information humanity has ever created is available on this amazing 'internets', all except a simple timing belt order confirmation. There's a billion things going on throughout the internet at all times, which somehow only magnifies the effect of being ignored.

Dry your tears. I know, it's a trying situation, and reading such magnificent prose on the subject must cut like the sharpest of blades. Fear not though, Vick's is fantastic. Jerry's (the proprietor of Vick's) response to my inquiry was Walter Sobchak-esque: "You want a timing belt? Oh, I can get you a timing belt, believe me. With nail polish." Ok, it maybe wasn't quite like that. The lesson though, Vick's is great and they got me a belt in no time. I'll be going back to them.

I had just about given up on Vendor #1 actually getting me anything useful, when lo! They managed to deliver me something just the other day. They look good (see below).














Interestingly, the newspaper the Italian part was packed in was written in Chinese and contained a large ad for The Encyclopedia Britannica, in English.....with prices in yuan. Lancia Scorpions, the international language.

Hooza!!

I finally did it! I took the starter out and wiggled it around and then seated it back and tightened the bolts and its working. Don't know how, but I'm not going to question a good thing. I took the car out for a spin and it really needs a new bushing for the steering rack (I saw this when I was reassembling everything). There is about 15 degrees of steering wheel travel in which the car doesn't react as the steering rack slides back and forth on the bushing. However, if the steering rack is already in contact with a 'side', and you turn in that direction, it reacts instantly. The combination of these two things makes it a little scary to drive. Check out it running here, hopefully you can hear the turbos:

Starter part Deux

So I got the bolts through the bell housing and the starter and tried to start the BiTurbo again and this time a diffrent sound but still just as chilling. I'm looking at the picture again and I think it might need to go through 2 diffrent holes in the bell housing then the ones i have it in. It's awesome that there are a multitude of diffrent orientation in a spots that you can't see.

Starter

So I've figured out whats happened!!! There are no instructions for this in the transmission installation section of the service manual, nor is there a dedicated section for starter installation; but there is this diagram that I found in the engine section that shows that the starter is actually supported by bolts that go through the bell housing. I have the bolts and I know where they go through the bell housing, but I thought they were the usual "extra bolts" that I have lying around after any installation. Because those bolts also were being used for the trans grounding strap, which I had connected to another bolt, I figured that I didn't need them again. So I think that the starter slid further down into the V of the engine after I had removed the trans and I couldn't get the bolts through when putting it back in. Now the starters location is entirely hidden from view at all times and you can barely get your hand up to where it is supposed to be so I think this will be a challenge but I don't think I need to disassemble anything!

Milano body work

The rear fenders on the Milano were pretty rusted through when I got her. So I bought some replacement body panels and cut out the original body panels that were bad and welded in the new good ones. The next step will be to smooth everything out add some primer and then give it a fresh coat of paint.

Intercoolers

When I first got the intercoolers they looked like the first picture, pretty beaten up and poor looking.











To give them a nice look I sprayed them down with black crinkle paint that they use on truck bed liners and then used a sander to sand off the raised portion on the outer ring and the Maserati symbol . Given how hard it was to sand off the paint, I don't think I have to worry about them degrading for a long time.











Then, I cut the intake tubing to fit the intercoolers in and put them in the intake path. I welded a 1 inch diameter pipe onto the intake piping on the pressurized and non-pressureized path and connected in the two bypass valves I bought.










After this I tightened all the hose clamps and I'm ready to fire it up!

Progress?

Today I spent some time reassembling the Maserati after finally getting the trans back in after replacing the clutch. After getting the trans in, you have to reconnect the steering rack.










So I centered it, bolted it down, and attached it to the steering column.









Next I reconnect the exhaust, but before I did that I welded in an O2 bung and installed a sensor. This way I can monitor fuel ratio as I adjust the boost.









After I got all everything put back together and cleaned up the garage, I lowered the car and hopped in. When I pressed the starter (Ed: Bob has a 'Start/Stop Engine' button in the BiTurbo) it sounds like it is grinding against the back of the fly wheel and it isn't turning the engine. I have no idea how this happened, but it looks like I'll have to take everything off again and see whats going on.