The BORA

the good news is the tank doesn't leak. I put pieces of hose and clamps on the two nipples and put a quart of alchohol in the tank and not a drop leaked out. I think all that white smoke and leaking was that extra three liters of LHM in the tank. Much obliged to the selling dealer for topping it off for me . Will paint it and reinstall it when I get a chance. Thanks to everyone who offered insights into my first adventure with the new Bora. I tip my hat to you all.

 

There is a bleed screw located on the pressure regulator which can be opened with a 12mm socket. Open it slightly while the engine is running; you will feel when the system looses its pressure. Close it after a few seconds. If you completely remove the bleed screw you risk having the ball inside come flying out. Ask me how I know ....

Ivan

 

thanks, I understand a 1/4 turn should suffice.

 

Before you start the engine, fill the pump and the suction hose with LHM and open the bleed screw at the pressure regulator. The pump don’t like to run dry. Let the engine run so long that there are no air bubbles coming to the reservoir anymore then you can close the bleed screw. Otherwise you bring too much air into the pressure system.
Daniel

 

The system self bleeds air bubbles but only in the recirculating portion of the circuits. The calipers obviously don't fall into that category. So ... if your fluid and fixtures are in good condition you can bleed the calipers into a clean vessel and retain the fluid to add back to the reservoir tank but not right away. You need to let any bubbles in the fluid escape BEFORE recycling the fluid.

Also, here's what I have found. The nitrogen pressure behind the bladders in the accumulators can permeate the bladders over time. You will notice this in a symptom that makes the brake pads grab and not operate as smoothly as a freshly bled system because the leaked nitrogen must first be compressed before the system fully grabs the rotors. The effect is one of the car being pulled slightly left right as the uneven braking equalizing. It's very annoying when driving in a sporty manner. If this begins to occur frequently then you may want to consider replacing the accumulators. In my experience the system never remained prefect for long periods of time but an occasional bleed (with reuse of the fluid after waiting for the bubbles to escape) always cleared the issue up.

There is also a fluid flow limiter in the circuit of most Boras. I'm not sure if it's same for Khamnsins , Meraks or Indy's. That's there so that if you burst a hose the entire system doesn't empty with a couple of pedal presses.
My Bora doesn't have this limiter. Knowing DeTomaso and mine being the last one I'm guessing that they ran out of stock for those limiting valves and just said "Oh F it!".
The fluid comes out of my bleed valves very fast. I don't know when they stopped using this valve so look at the LHM parts diagram and see if your car has it.

 

It is not good practice to recover LHM from bleeds and even less from brakes because it does not circulate and it heats up a lot.

 

Thanks, I presume you can see bubbles by keeping the main cap unscrewed and peering down.

 

BS.
You did not read my post carefully enough.
"if your fluid and fixtures are in good condition you can bleed the calipers into a clean vessel and retain the fluid to add back to the reservoir tank but not right away."

 

The rear brakes are certainly not in the circulation system, but doesn't the dual brake lines on the front calipers and the Brake Control diagram (https://www.eurospares.co.uk/Maserati/Bora/Bora/PartDiagrams/023/Brake_Control) suggest that the front brakes do self bleed?

 

Tank tidy and ready to reisntall. Still awaiting a specific hose.
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I'll just chime in here and repeat some things about LHM bleeding experiences, Bob you covered it well.
My experience is that I've never had to perform a dedicated "bleed" of the main circulating systems - the reservoir, accumulators, regulator, headlight or seat and pedal rams. I've refilled the system, run the engine, check the LHM level and fill the reservoir as necessary to reach a level between Min and Max.
Having said that, running the reservoir low introduces air into the brake circuits and this can be felt in the pedal actuation and you get a blink or more of etc "LOW BRAKE PRESSURE" warning light - or at least you should.

Therefore I've only bled the brake calipers, so let's talk about that.

They are easy once you get it: Put the car up on stands and get all the wheels off, you have no idea which caliper has the air trapped in it. Start the engine and use something to press and hold the brake pedal down enough to introduce brake pressure. Crack each caliper bleed nipple one at a time, slowly and bleed each caliper into a jar. Refill the reservoir accordingly. The first time I did this, I experienced foaming LHM. When the LHM foams, there is too much LHM being depressurized and it basically effervesces, like a diver with the bends, as it flows out the bleed nipple. So slow the flow down.

I start at the front, furthest from the accumulators, just out of habit. I rarely re-use the LHM fluid, especially from the calipers. Sometimes it is discolored from age or heat, so that is an obvious NOT REUSE. I do use a clean glass jar, so if there is anything visible in the LHM, I discard it. There is no reason to risk introducing debris into the LHM pump and regulators. I've had enough leaks over the years, I don't think I've ever flushed the system. The leaks have never been too complex that I couldn't figure them out, and either fix them myself, or send the components to Wills Imports in Salt Lake City.

Cheers,
- Art

PS - Not to nitpick, but that hue of green looks to be more 'grayish' than original. Do you care? I'm sure someone has researched the "proper" Citroen green with an color code. Anyone? I've just gone to the Craylon or Rust-O-Leum aisle and picked a good proximate color.

 

Yes it looks light. There is in fact a color code, AC502 Verte. This comment from "Aussie Frogs" board is helpful:

"Given the range I have found over the years, pick a green you like and run with it.

I try to keep one colour only in my own car, but I have the advantage of painting all the hydraulic parts myself.

While there was the one colour code ( AC 502 ) and I guess that most paint companies would have a formula, really it's a lottery, depending on what the factory had supplied at the time. Even original, genuine replacement parts could be a different green."

If you look at rebuilt and NOS green bits, there does seem to be more than one possible shade. I picked this paint because it was the apporoximate shade and this paint is both chemical and heat resistant and that seemed more critical than the exact shade. I got it from amazon and the color of the cap online did look a bit darker than the actual paint came out to be.

 

Even the other LHM components can be found in various shades of green so I wouldn't sweat it. If you're worried about ever winning a concours event then you've got much bigger issues than this. Namely, the ignorance of the judges and a lack of an educated consensus on such things. I think this is close enough. I can't even remember if I did repaint my tank. It was one of the few things that didn't suffer heat damage from the thermal reactor blast furnaces during a long drive between Oklahoma City and SF. Most of that damage happened as I entered Denver in early spring with a load of winter formulated gas and then departed @ 9:00pm to avoid the heat up through Berthoud pass @ 11,000. FT!

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It was 90F when we rolled into Denver and the car was experiencing severe vapor lock which I discovered later was due to those thermal reactors. I got flat bedded to a pre-planned exotic car garage just in case.
They couldn't anything amiss, but when I had opened the gas cap I could see the gas churning inside the tank. That's when we decide to leave after dark. But that didn't work and somewhere on that pass at about 10:30 it began bucking again. I opened the rear hatch and the thermal reactors were glowing red! I correctly deduced that I had to cut the air pump belt and that's when I first noticed that little metallic label on the LH side of the engine compartment frame that cautioned not to operate above 4000 Ft elevation. I was at almost 3 times that! After that and an hour to cool down it purred like a cat all the way home.

 

You remind me of Maser Miglia in 1997, a wonderful event based in Beaver Creek, Colorado.

I rode and drove in 6 cars including the Bora of Russell Daniel, the owners were wonderful and generous people. We drove high up in the Rocky Mountains to something like...14000 feet! Guess what; we had vapor lock in the Bora...but it did not delay us too long, Russell and local expert mechanic Mike Dopudja found a solution, perhaps the same as you. After that we were able to drive all day on fabulous twisty traffic free mountain roads perfect for such a touring rally.

 

Would love to take my Bora on a Rally of those sorts one of these days. Hell I'd love to drive it around the block LOL. I think Im a week or two away from installing everything back and taking it for a spin.

 

You've got lots of nice roads in GA, SC NC and VA to drive your Bora on. The higher elevations out west can challenge F/A ratios on carb cars like this. As long as you're not running an air injection pump into the exhaust system you're not going to experience what I did. Sort the car really well before taking it out west but Nevada's HWY 50 is nirvana for the big GT cars. Hopefully it's still just as empty and unpatrolled as it was back in the late 80's. There's nowhere else like in this country or the rest of the world for that matter.

 

Join The Maserati Club Southeast at https://tmc-se.com/
It is a fun club and we do a couple of multi-day rallies a year. Rallies are mostly in the GA or TN mountains although there was one in Florida earlier this year.

Ivan

 

Excellent! Will do.

Dean

 

Wait... did I hear someone say 'Rally'?...
- Art

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cool!

 

Sweden!

 

Who is that guy driving the Mistral coupe?

Ivan

 

Wait.. ..I think I know that levelly young couple!

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TECH NOTE:

Dean, et al... I replaced the gear oil in my Bora today..

If you are thinking of doing the same, make sure you can access and loosen/tighten the filler plug (Table 11, Part 16 is shown on the top of the housing, but mine is not so) before you proceed to drain the gearbox. My plug is located on the driver's side of the gearbox below the shifter housing. I had to improvise and use a ratcheting box wrench threaded over the 17mm Allen wrench to be able to apply enough torque to loosen the plug.
See photos below. The filler plug doesn't need a lot of tightening when you close it, it demarcates the fill level, so there's no "oil pressure" behind it.

Here is the way I used the ratcheting box wrench:
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Here is the fill/level port on the driver's side of the gearbox, with the 17mm Allen plug already removed:
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Another tip: Heat up the new gear oil in a bath of hot water so it flows better when filling it.
Just dry off the heated containers so you don't get any water in the oil.
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Here is the 17mm Allen wrench and ratcheting box wrench closing the filler plug:
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... "that lovely young couple"....! .. oh how I despise autocorrect sometimes.