When we did a bare metal respray last year, the one thing that was never properly refinished was the infamous SS roof. Despite several tries I was never happy. Needless to say this became an obsession which had to be resolved. Finally, today we achieved a stunning result: Image Unavailable, Please Login Thought some of you might appreciate the difference... Image Unavailable, Please Login Regards.
Boralogist. R u prepared to share how you achieved this stunning result? I am currently in the assembly stage of my restoration and the 1 item i haven't addressed is the roof. Regards
Happy to respond to you both. After gaining a lot of trial & error experience, basically basically followed the instructions below. Going down to 80 grit was the key to removing the entire mess. It takes incredible patience and time, always improvising as you see the result. http://delorean.co.nz/1564/?p=68 Enjoy!
Happy to respond to you both. After gaining a lot of trial & error experience, basically basically followed the instructions below. Going down to 80 grit was the key to removing the entire mess. It takes incredible patience and time, always improvising as you see the result. http://delorean.co.nz/1564/?p=68 Enjoy!
Strong ask for this 77 USA Bora. http://www.fantasyjunction.com/cars/2081-Maserati-Bora%204.9-4.9%20Litre%20V8?utm_source=1977+Maserati+Bora+4.9&utm_campaign=Maserati+Bora&utm_medium=email If they get it I may just reconsider ever converting my bumpers as it's a big job in the rear.
Based on the condition of what I’ve seen trade in the $130-170k range, if as described, the price seems reasonable to me.
As long as you don't drive it. Original finishes on these cars were that great and that much time is no friend. To me it looks like the redid the valve covers and possibly touched up the black wrinkle on the heads? It does look reasonably nice but AFAIK many detest the big bumpers and once you start converting that then it's no longer a low mileage original car. Ivan is hoping that 1044 will eventually be coveted in spite of the big bumpers. I doubt either of them will ever bring big money overseas so it will have to be in the USA marketplace and this car and the Khamsin just don't do nearly as well here.
Looks absolutely fabulous, even with the US bumpers. And, given its original condition, it would probably be most correct to keep it that way.
The original grain was done by using a rotary brush which produced overlapping limited length graining marks as opposed to graining drawn contiguously from one side to the other. Claus Groth refinished his Bora's roof in this manner by using a jig which guided and controlled the graining process. But if you go back to a basic rough finish and then grain in another manner I don't see why that wouldn't produce a nice if somewhat different result as well. It might be easier to maintain as well. When you've finished you should post a link to some much better photos of the final result. Your approach might be a lot easier than Clause's.
Please note that in the upper right hand corner of the first picture above, is the exact rotary brush recommended by Clause. Unfortunately we were never able to get a satisfactory result using it; although it was a useful learning tool. Regards.
Sad but true! For example, look at this 1972 @ 347K. https://www.classicdriver.com/en/car/maserati/bora/1972/505598
PS Before the usual "he will never get it" responses, please look at the listed prices on his nearly 300 cars, to see how realistic he appears: https://www.classicdriver.com/en/dealer/gallery-aaldering?id=31662&type=&make=&model=
I used the cars icon, selected Maseratis, sorted ascending to see what all was there. I am not sure what he is. I don't think those are all his cars, but a listing of cars that might be for sale around the world. I noticed one that has shown up on eBay in the US several times.
Boralogist Thank you for posting the details on finishing the stainless steel roof. I am probably a couple of months away from having to do this but it is valuable information.
I beleive Clause removed the SS roof to refinish it. I remember something about the jillions of tiny SS screws used to attach it to the car? So how do you get right to the edge of the SS WO bumping into the polished trim or paint, especially on those A pillars? Seems quite challenging.
Just to clarify a misunderstanding. The Biturbos you point out have nothing to do with this seller. You are looking at "similar" market ads which show up after you have looked up one of his cars. This seller, Aaldering, for whom I provided the above link, has only 16 Maseratis on his site for sale. Thanks.
To clarify the clarification, the link above is to Classic Driver, as can be clearly seen from the URL. It is to a page with an article about Gallery Aaldering, not the actual site of that dealer, which is <gallery-aaldering.com>. With the provided link, the first thing you see at the top of the page is Classic Driver's search button. If you navigate into the page to the article you can then use Aaldering's stocklist search, or you can just go directly to that site. While Aaldering does not have any '88 Biturbos, he does have two '86 Biturbo Spyders at $39269 (31950 Euro) and $36811 (29950 Euro), and also two QP3s for the same prices, pretty strong stuff compared to US prices for these. The USD and Euro prices are the same. What is interesting about that is that European dealers must collect VAT on used car sales to EU customers, so how much of the price is VAT? It isn't obvious because the dealer is allowed to charge VAT on the full price of the car or only on the margin. I could not see why anyone would load up the price with useless taxes, but the reason might be that if you ever offer a car in Europe with VAT and the same car sans VAT to a non-EU citizen, then it will be immediately obvious what the dealer's margin was - not so good for haggling. If the Bora in question, at 279500 Euro, is fully VAT loaded, then nearly $50k of the USD price shown is taxes.
OTOH ... This car doesn't look to bad with the less modied USA rear end. I wish the vin# was listed as this looks a lot like my friend's Bora from the late 1990s which we entered together in the Nevada Silver State open road race. Found it, #1040. Not his so two folks have done this now and same exterior color too. The 30 ft photos look pretty good but not so tidy in the engine compartment and else where. What do folks think of this rear end treatment as a compromise? Having seen my friends done almost identically I know exhaust routing is somewhat tortured. Worse than the rubber bumpers or better? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login This would be way easier to accomplish than a full early European conversion.
This is a billion times better than the disgusting Ralph Nader atrocities. Good compromise. I actually like it!
For some reason it looks much better than my friend's did? I need to find photos of that car to see why. I know someone who could fabricate a better filler grill for below the bumper out of aluminum slats instead of that cheap OEM aluminum screen. Something to echo the original one better. He did work something like this for a series 1 Espada and it is secured by spring loaded detents instead of the OEM million tiny screws. So you can quickly take it out to clean the glass. http://www.vintagelambo.com/reproductions1grille.html He also made new aluminum side moldings for these cars. I bet he'd make a really nice piece for that area.
Totally agreed. If you play with the slat angles you will come up with something that visually seals off that area yet looks very original. That would make it even better. This would be a great solution for all late model USA Boras.
Well it would be nice to see the exhaust routing before deciding but it may just be a twisted S curve from the horizontal OEM muffler that I run. Then add a couple of ansa tips. The issue I had with the OEM (looks like you have a load in your pants) lower panel is that it was poorly constructed and they used bondo to smooth it out at the end panel joints. Well with all that herat from air pump poring into the thermal reactors on my purchase drive home across half of America it burned the bondo and paint off. A lot of stuff got roasted on that drive home ... That stupid emissions system just didn't work properly or safely. That was soon remedied. Today you can use better heat shielding. I think I'd have any filling done with lead instead.