Hi Bart, Thanks, I actually had this valve on mind as a possible source of error. I will inform you as soon as I have made the diagnostic. Take care, Reddy
hi reddy, absolutely sure it was a khamsin. can't say if it was an early one or not though. the colour was a medium metallic brown tone. but not like the colour of my car which is "rame" which has quite a bit of red in it making it look reddish in photographs. i do not have a colour chart so don't know it must have been early 1978. the ghibli man knew of a khamsin but did not know the owner. paul
Interesting! Thanks for the info. So probably that last auction is where the owner of the collection got it. Seems like there was a change in ext. mirrors at some point... I've read most of this thread and have always been a fun of the Khamsin so when I saw one at the museum I knew what to do!
Dear Paul, This medium metallic brown is the car I have today! As far as I know there is no second Khamsin in Iran. I have attached for you some pictures from a Z28 and my Khamsin. Take care, Reddy Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
993: glad to share the little info I had! Paul: as Reddy says you almost certainly saw his car. It is however conceivable that another Khamsin might have been sold in the country back then though it seems nobody knows about it. I believe -and our friends in Tehran can correct me if I am wrong- there were several other Masers there excepting the Shah's. I now have an appointment to see MM Cozza and Collina at the factory in just over two weeks and look forward to refining my data on cars by country though as discussed some cars were delivered to an Italian dealer, like Reddy's AM1201230 in Rome and then exported right afterwards and thus the factory has no data other than the dealer delivery. They normally do not have the client name unless there are special order options. Bart had a particularly nice experience yesterday with R. in Germany and his Khamsin, perhaps he will share the story after his busy weekend best regards, Marc
marc, reddy just out of curiosity, what was the original colour of the tehran khamsin, and when do you think it was resprayed? p.
Hi Paul, The original color of the car has not been changed. As the car was resprayed about 5 years ago the previous owner decided to make it a touch darker as it originaly was. I believe the color is called luci del bosco. Regards, Reddy
Paul as Reddy mentions ldb was the car's original color, see post 2465 for the exact shade -as always the light and your screen makes it vary etc etc...a bit like an Italian speedometer! I am very happy to say that a factory color booklet I lent to Doug owner of 341 was used in matching the color: I had acquired it purely as memorabilia and never dreamt it would be that useful! best regards, Marc
Dear Marc, Maserati's currently accounted for in addition to the Khamsin are as follows: 1. Ghibli: See previous posts. 2. Indy: One unit. In private hands, bought at government auction. Has a factory installed sunroof, which is said to be rare. Rumoured to be ex-Shah. 3. Merak: Two units. Both bought at government auction, in private hands. Both not running. 4. Bora: Currently following up on a tip. 5. Possible cars taken out of Iran (i.e 5000 GT 'Scia di Persia') - no clear numbers. 6. Citroen SM: Five accounted for. One is in government warehouse. Most, but not all in poor shape. 7. Bi-Turbo: Two units. Both brought along by people fleeing the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Hope this helps, Best Wishes Ramin
Thank you for that Ramin. Small world: when I worked at Motorcar Gallery in Fort Lauderdale to acquire my own Khamsin my boss there Ed Waterman showed me photos of when he very briefly owned the Shah's 5000GT! best regards, Marc
ok thanks, ldb it is. not the colour i remember but it's more than thirty years ago. maybe it was the same maybe one that has long since left the country again like so many did. marc, ed waterman! i bought my continental flying spur from him. he still owes me the spare tyre which some how never arrived with the car. as he was wrestling with the car to get it out of the showroom his good looking young daughter kept yelling at him,"relax, dad you're gonna get a heart attach again!". i couldn't believe it, what a character. a (french ) friend who was with me bought a supercharged avanti off him the same day. terrible piece of kit, but it looked the part going down the champs elysees. when it broke down he took it to the nearest garage in asnieres, only to have some old mechanic there say "pas de probleme, i know these cars". turned out he worked on raymond loewy's personal cars when they were new. as a friend of my dad's in england once told me "the nice thing about driving an interesting old car is that you meet all sorts of interesting people when you break down" P.
Hello Paul and sorry for the delayed reply. Yes Ed is certainly a character but he is constantly overworked despite being a workaholic so he does not I don't think intently forget; I would just keep reminding him, by phone. Works better. It seems he hid the fact that he had a daughter from me perhaps he was concerned about a young Frenchman No it must have been someone else as he has no daughter as far as I know...and the episode you mention brings to mind seing him crawl out a Miura window, yes with his extensive girth, in a packed warehouse with cars parked inches from each other. enough to give concours judges a coronary! Avanti's...crude old things but handsome. In Paris I used to see Raymond Loewy's personal black Avanti parked by his offices in the late 70's early 80's. never saw him there, however in Monaco in February 1982 we saw a gold Avanti come by in the other direction with a distinguished gent driving. Later I saw the car again in casino square and the mail on the passenger seat was addressed to Monsieur Raymond Loewy... Getting back on topic: as discussed here recently our friend Russel in Colorado has as a consequence of a garage fire suffered the total loss of his Khamsin, AM120US1208 which has now rejoined others in the great Maserati cemetery in the sky along with AM120376 which suffered the same fate in Germany years ago and at least one red K near New York city in the 1980's. Very very sorry for your loss Russel. This is a good occasion to emphasize that, even though this fire was not due to the car itself and Khamsins are not actually prone to catching fire like some other contraptions made decades ago 20kms north of the Maserati factory, nevertheless having a fire extinguisher in your car is something you will never regret. Just make sure you have the right one. Not my expertise. I leave you with that thought and these sad pictures...but will be talking about the upcoming rebirth of another Khamsin in the next few days so there is sunshine beyond this cloud! best regards, Marc Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Dear Marc, These pictures just tear your heart apart! I could imagine how much work and love was spent in that car. Best regards, Reddy
What a great shame, however I trust that the car isnt just taken to the scap metal yard. As bad as it seems the fact tha the rims arnt melted tells me there are lots of redeamable parts on the car. The fire dosent look that intence so all the steel parts will be salvageable. The stainless door frames , Panels and some suspension parts. Graeme
I have put together a Khamsin Hydraulic overview I how this helps your self and others. The Khamsin Hydraulics system uses a combination of Citroen SM DS Systems for the major controls and Bosch Micro Hydraulics’ for the secondary systems. The Core system. A multi piston hydraulic pump supplies the pressure to the pressure regulator which sets the pressure to 184 Bar or approx. 2700 psi. The pump is a multi piston type. Very simply explained by the link . http://web.actwin.com/toaph/citroen/work/pump.html The regulator has a main accumulator that effectively buffers the system use so as there a constant supply. The Khamsin per charge pressure of the accumulators is set to 64 Bar ( NB a Citroen system is 46 Bar something to keep in mind if you have the accumulators replaced/recharged.) The System in turns supplies the pressure to the two Break accumulators. It is important I identify another part that plays a critical role in the system, Spindle Valves. Spindle Valves are effectively taps and function in a similar way. They are ¼” (6mm) diameter approx. About 25mm long piston in a barrel . There are no seals internally as the clearance is 2 microns, or in plain language extremely close. How they are used varies dependant on the system they operate. To explain, system pressure is applied to the barrel via a small port in the middle for two directional movement as in the rack and towards one end its if one direction. As the spindle moves it has very small radial slots that allow pressure to be transferred to an out port on the barrel and to what is operating. Movement of the spindles is either mechanical as in the rack and the power steering governor or in the case of the clutch hydraulically operated to actuate the clutch actuator (slave cylinder). The steering system. The Steering has two main components, the rack and the pressure governor. The Rack in effect is a hydraulic operated ram with the “rack” acting as a follow-up mechanism. The rack also has with a hydraulic piston with a roller that that works on a heart shaped Cam that creates the self-centring part of the steering. The rack hydraulic piston gets its movement input by a spindle Valve moved as you move the steering input. The clever bit is the artificial feel / self- centring. As I mentioned the self centring uses the hydraulic pressure from the governor to centre the steering and to harden it. To explain this governor is a fly weight ( no I don’t mean light weight ) This diagram is basically the same, as the rotating mass travels around the Rotating shaft driven by the rear axle via the small V belt it moves the weights out, moving the spindle . The faster the car goes the more pressure is ported to the self centring piston giving the feel of heavier steering. The Play in the steering when there is no hydraulic pressure is caused by no pressure to the piston in self centring piston allowing the steering pinion to touch the ( follow-up)rack. Braking system This is basically a DS system . Now those who are familiar with a basic braking system this is no different however the execution is somewhat different. When the system is pressurised there is pressure to the “master cylinder” which is known as the batcher valve. This batcher valve has, yes you guessed it a spindle valve in it which ports pressure to the front or the rear brakes, via differential shut of valves. Unlike a normal brake system the fluid in the brakes when they are released is feed back to the hydraulic tank via that small round tank above the clutch slave cylinder. This acts as reservoir for the clutch master cylinder. And it is for this reason that the brakes are the first non core system parts to bleed. The Clutch. Most clutch systems use a master cylinder and a slave cylinder. This is also true of the Khamsin however instead of the master cylinder moving the main piston in the slave cylinder it moves the spindle in the Clutch actuator ( slave cylinder). This in turn ports pressure to the main piston moving the clutch release fork. And from interest this unit comes from the semi auto DS. One interesting part of the clutch is that the SM uses the main Hydraulic tank as the supply for the clutch fluid. The Khamsin uses the small tank above the clutch cylinder which is constantly fed buy return fluid from the braking system Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
"Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it."
Ah ok if you say so Joe: glad to hear Look forward to detailed resurrection report best regards, Marc
Dear Graeme, Thank you very much for your detail explaination, I really appreciated! Now that I understood the theory I will start with the diagnostic and I think I should be able to locate the problem. Thank you and best regards, Armaz
Hello all: Well done Graeme for the excellent hydraulic explainer. Restoration of AM120016 While some are buried some are reborn: If you follow the link: http://www.carrossimo.com/categories/encours/maserati-khamsin/ If you have any link troubles just go to http://www.carrossimo.com/ and scroll down the list on the left. you will see countless photos of the restoration of AM120016 (the first Khamsin ever sold in France, 8th car built and 6th oldest still in existence) by the company of my friend Bernard Guenant, avid Maserati collector: Carrossimo. I helped him acquire that car in 2009 after it sat fairly neglected in the home of an eccentric near Fontainebleau who also had AM120204. As you see below the fashion of standing in the engine bay started by Bart is catching on best regards, Marc Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hi Marc Its nice to see a balance in the life and time of Khamsins. Not to mention the effort that goes into restoring them. Did I mention money ............... Its almost enough to make me restore another one................ Graeme
H Armaz I have had an email from Marc Sonnery after he contacted the Maserati factory. It appears that the info I have is incorrect about the Maserati Khamsin Accumulator sphere precharge pressure. Marc tells me that the Factory just bought the units from Citroen. It appears they are the standard 46BAR and unless they were special which it appears they were not then they were standard Citroen DS units. Regards Graeme I displayed my car at a local event today and took this picture when I got home pretty car on a georgeous day Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hi Graeme: I am busy like a juggler who gets a truckload of balls dumped on him now but...I am not entirely satisfied with that answer I got which you refer to and sometimes for technical matters it is not the factory that should be asked. I would say that the parts are mostly the same but that I do believe the pressures in Maseratis are higher (and thus that some Masers are running around with incorrect pressures, not dangerous just a bit too soft). You know a lot more than I do on this and your reference of two different valve settings with the actual numbers the other day was the first one I ever saw. The problem here between the Citroen world and the Maserati world is a bit like with hybrids such as Isos de Tomasos and Monteverdis: some know the engines very well but little about the cars and vice versa. I will investigate this further on both sides of the Alps with French Citroen and Maserati experts as well as in Modena in 10 days. By the way if anybody has other valid questions for the factory, within reason, let me know by Sunday next and I will try to ask. best regards, Marc
Hi Marc I have asked this question of both MIE and CAMPANA. MIE havent gotten back to me I have a feeling I got the info from a Gentleman here is Australia who worked for a Citroen/Maserati Dealership in London in the mid Seventies. He also told me a story of a Middleastern Geltman that bought a Bora with Gold Bars! Regards Graeme
Nice looking Khamsin! I specify to have the brake accumulators charged to 65 atm (bars) when they are rebuilt. Not sure where exactly I found that information but I have been using it for many years. If I recall, the pressure setting is stamped on the bottom of the brake accumulators. Ivan
Citroën stamps all spheres at the top (next to the round screw), so that might be valid for the Maserati spheres too. It would be interesting to check this on a car that has the original spheres. If the spheres still holds pressure, it's possible to fill the them to right pressure with nitrogen if you change the round screw with a filler valve. This is very common on Citroën's, but I wouldn't recommend it on Maserati's because the consequence of a broken sphere in this system. On the Citroën's the weight of the car it selves work as a pressure accumulator, but this is not the case on Maserati's because the they doesn't use the LHM suspension (witch is not suitable for a sports car).
