3500GT AM101.916 Log

I took 916 down to Stans Headers in Auburn yesterday to have the QuickSilver stainless exhaust installed. Stans is the go to guy in the area when it comes to custom exhaust.
Picked it up today and the drive back to Mercer Island was music to my ears.
The exhaust note is now just right.
Here are some photos of the install.
Note the shots of the underside of the car showing very solid floor boards with no rust.
Also note the old exhaust was mostly made up of flex pipe.
Stans guy did a great job of hanging the system.
You will note that I do not install the rear muffler. I like my cars to have a little snarl to them and the rear muffler seems to quite them down a little to much for my taste.

Having 4 of these 3500's means 1 must go, so regretfully, this car, a 4 speed, carbureted roll up window car will be coming up for sale in a few months.
Ciao,
FGM
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I had the wheels from 101.916 media blasted, polished the rim and powder coated the centers and back sides.
The results were fantastic as you can see here. I mounted and balanced some new, and not so new Pirelli 185 VR 16 tires and what a difference from the old crappy tires and rims.
Ciao,
FGM
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Great Stuff Frank!
Thanks for keeping us in the loop with all of this. What color did you use for the powder coated center? Was there a secret to getting the aluminum rims polished w/o loosing the factory size stampings?
Can we get some more over all photos of the car?
Thanks, RF.

 

Picked up 916 today from the sheet metal shop where I had the following items made and or tuned
Battery cover made, including the two special aluminum thumb fasteners.
Door straps made for both doors
Front bumper fitted
Trunk stays fitted and installed
Radio block off plate made.
Large hole in dash for aftermarket radio welded in.
Driver door latch adjusted to create a door that now fits and shuts properly.
and a couple other items attended to.
I am very happy with the results.

I drove the car back to Bellevue through the I-90 tunnels and enjoyed the great sound reverberating off the walls. I love the new QuickSilver stainless exhaust on song at full power pulling through 3500 RPM's in 4th gear. I wanted to just keep driving...

This car will be for sale soon.

Ciao,
FGM
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916 arrived here in Palm Desert a couple days ago.
With the Latina now finished and running perfectly I can now turn my attention to 3500 #3 101.916
I have decided to strip and paint the car which will include pulling all the glass doors trunk and hood.
Redo the interior with new black leather, new carpets and headliner.
Send some of the parts out for chroming and
preform a laundry list of mechanical tuning including new throttle shafts in the webber's.

First the mechanical then send the car over to the paint shop and at the same time have the trimer start on the seats and parts that can be done with out the car.

This will be a big job but you know what I really enjoy it.
Additionally it is nice to have the Latina for the trimmer to use for getting the interior dead on correct.
I will be posting photos of the progress.
The photos show it on the day of arrival together with 101.686, the Vespa GT and the Quattroporte.
This will be the last opportunity to buy a "driver 3500" as it will very soon go under the knife and come out a beautiful example of a lovely driving, sounding and smelling 3500.
I have 5 skins of very high quality leather the new wool carpets and the correct "Woolies" cotton binding.
Ciao,
FGM
PS
In the Latina log you can see the clean cardboard that came out from under the car after sitting all night after a 5 mile drive. Note not one drop of oil.
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Frank, did you ditch your 360?
Both 3500's are looking good. Glad to here the Latina is back on the road and ready for use.

 

Yes, sold the 360, and am now 100% focused on early 3500GT's.
Ciao,
FGM

 

The local glass guy came over today and pulled the front and rear glass.

Now I start the task of fitting the used chrome finishers to the front and rear. I bought the car with out the finishers.
I was able to buy a complete set of used finishers from Larry Ruben who now had the chance to get even with me after all these years. The price - Ouch!

After fitting all the finishers I will then send them out to be chromed.
After the engine and trans are pulled the rolling body will go into the paint shop.

Next week the seats will go over to the trimmer along with the 5 hides of leather and "The Latina" The trimmer will use 101.686 as a template in order to get every stitch correct.
This is one of the benefits to having an original car to copy.

On Sat I drove 916 over to the Sisters Truck Wash where they steamed cleaned the engine compartment and the front suspension. Amazingly there are still companies that do this kind of work. They did a great job.
Driving home on the freeway I was amazed at how powerful this car pulls. The engine appears to be very dry with the exception of a severe rear main seal leak. The white paper in the garage looks like an oil bath. This means engine out, crank out. We will replace the front engine seal at the same time.
I am looking for a very dark grey color code with very little to no metallic to paint the car any suggestions?
Photos coming.
Ciao,
FGM

 

Mhhhhh......considering how the car sounds with a stock exhaust, this looks like a quiet one.....nice job though. Are these custom made or Quicksilver does other exhausts for the Ghibli?

 

Yes, the car has QuickSilver stainless exhaust without the rear muffler to give it a very nice deep sound.
I have installed Quicksilver exhaust on 3 of my 4 3500GT's
FGM

 

Installing the front and rear glass finishers is an easy job especially when you are fitting finishers not originally made for the car. Somewhere along the line 916 lost his finishers.
So as I mentioned in an earlier post I purchased a used set which we are now fitting.
I decided to pull the glass and fit the chrome to the existing rubber which seems to be in very good shape.
Here are some photos of the process.
Using an 1/8 inch drill we are making new holes for the studs.
A die is used to clean up the threads. Broken studs are re-soldered using silver solder a very strong material. After the chrome is fitted and dollied out I will send it out to be re-chromed. We will then refit it, and then fit it again this time with the glass installed.

On the factory build sheet I noted that the Touring body number is 8226.
When pulling the grill out I noticed that it was numbered with a 26 as was the oval. The kick panels were also number with 26. Nice to know that the original grill surround was the one born with the car and not some replacement installed after a front end collision.

To my amazement the door fasteners came right out after leaving them soak overnight with some liquid wrench.
Ciao,
FGM
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Installing the front and rear glass finishers is NOT AN EASY JOB.
FGM

 

Yeah, I was wondering what you meant! Maybe a little sarcasm? It's simply shocking how much time little projects on one of these take....

 

Today was a very good day.
916 was being very cooperative and coming apart like the very good car that it is.
We were able to remove - with no drama at all - the bumpers, headlights, fog and turn sig lights as well as the rear lights, script trunk bright work.
To my absolute surprise the driver door fasteners came right out with an air tool and the door was placed on a stand and all the bits removed.
I can see the chroming bill growing by the hour.
The finishers for the front and rear glass are now dollied out, sanded smooth and ready for the chrome shop.
I am creating a digital catalog of the restoration which will help in the assembly of the car.
With the drawing and the photos I will know where the white, black and green wires go.
I have pretty much decided on a deep clear coated graphite grey color to go with the new black leather and rust colored carpets.
Stay tuned, this project is moving fast.
FGM
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cool stuff Frank!
Thanks for sharing. They sure come apart easy though. Keep 'em coming.
RF.

 

101.916 has now been completely stripped and ready to be prepped for paint.

 

that was fast. any photos of her naked? How are the troublesome areas at the roof/windshield post, and down at the base of the rear roof where it meets the top of the quarter panals? Any fixes necessary there?
RF.

 

No sign of problems such as you have mentioned, just studs on the tail fins, and windshield finishers broken. I bought a set of mini gas torches at Home Depo for $55 bucks and learned how to silver solder from a YouTube video. Silver solder is indestructible. The last guy used normal solder which pulls right off when the nuts are torqued. Heat marks on the stainless will polish right out.
FGM
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Making photos of the disassemble is important.
Here you can see some of the parts laid out and a close up of the tail light and the fog light clip.
The car was driven over to the mechanic on Friday who will pull the engine and trans on Monday.
This car runs very strong and stops on a dime, there are NO oil leaks except for a massive rear main seal leaking which means engine out, crankshaft out.
Ciao,
FGM
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This restoration project is moving quickly. It has now entered the priming and blocking stage.
Here you can see the master technician has coated the complete body with a type of aircraft quality primer. Another coat will be applied later today or Monday early AM.

I went over to the local Maserati and Porsche dealer today in order to find a good color to paint the car.
I am looking for a deep graphite grey color.
The Maserati colors were very nice including Grigio Maratea a new color, available on the new Ghibli. This color had perhaps a little to much metallic flake in it for my taste.
Maserati also had a Grigio Granito a dark graphite color, which was also very nice, but not quite dark enough.

Then I saw a 2013 Porsche Panamera in "Carbon Grey Metallic" (see photo below) and I was instantly taken by the color. A deep dark carbon graphite color, spectacular, very rich, very elegant.

The Touring body 3500 will look great in this dark color which will set off the new chrome and when fitted with the new black leather interior, new headliner, and rust color carpets, will in my personal opinion be extremely elegant and very handsome. Perhaps a touch of red on the polished Trident and on the script hubcaps.

As fast as this project is moving we will need another 3500 to get started on. Maybe yours can be next…..
Ciao,
FGM
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Interesting choice of colors, I would have thought you might consider painting the car a color that Maserati actually offered on the car when it was built. Personally the only color I would paint a vintage car is the color it was when it left the factory.

 

Well Joe, that is an interesting question, one which I toss and turned over.
After careful consideration I came up with the following.

101.916 with Touring body number 8226 was ordered on Feb 24th 1960 and left the factory on May 28 1960 painted white "Bianco" with black leather.
For me white is not such a good color on this car so I decided to paint it as if I were ordering it new and thus chose the deep carbon Grey color.
On the other hand I have/am doing the leather in black as it left the factory.
My logic is that at some point in the future a new owner may choose to repaint it white and will not need to redo the leather. So we are half way there to your way of thinking.
For now I will enjoy the car in the spirt of the Maserati company. Remember you could get - even today - any color you want, as long as you are willing to pony up the $$$.
Indeed I would argue that it is very possible that cars left the factory painted this dark carbon color requested by the customer on a special order basis.
Remember the color chips are only the standard colors offered.
Building special cars for special customers was, and is, the essence of Maserati.
Merry Christmas to all.
FGM

 

Frank: You know my vote, paint it the color which makes you happy, pay no attention to those giving advice they have not had to decide for themselves.
I still vote for Grigio Silverstone with smaller metal….
Malcolm

 

No disagreement with making a color change, but as custodians of relatively rare artifacts of a special era I think we have some responsibility to finish these cars in a manner that does not diverge too far from what is representative of the period. Many modern paints, especially metallics, have a very different appearance from what was available in period.

Improvements in materials and techniques have been so great, I admit that it would be almost fetishistic to use old-style nitrocellulose on anything but a museum specimen. But the changes have made it much harder to find colors suitable in appearance. Modern metallics, for example, are often formulated to present a rainbow of shades in different lighting.

About four years ago A6 1500 s/n #084 was repainted in a very modern metallic gray, instead of the dull non-metallic gray with which it originally left the factory. I think it looks bizarre, perhaps even worse than the inevitable rosso corsa the car wore for many years.

The Italian firm Lechler has made considerable effort to replicate in modern finishes a wide range of historical colors, especially for Italian motorcycles and cars: http://www.lechler.eu/on-line/en/Home/Refinish/HistoricalVehicles/documento1015220.html. Perhaps not so easy to obtain in the US, but worth the effort to use in my opinion.

Lechler materials were used to change the original color of my Flaminia from ivory (Avorio Chantilly) to metallic gray (Grigio Newmarket) last year. Although it is a modern two stage clear-coat finish, the overall appearance is quite correct for the car's period.
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Personally find dark grey with black leather a very drab combination. White with black is much more classic and very period. If you want something a bit different and still period do the roof in black with a white body.

As far as not having to decide for myself, I've had to make the decision a number of times. Most recently with Islero #6243, I really wasn't crazy about a dark bronze at first, but worked with PPG especially on getting the correct metallic content, the results were spectacular.

Staying with the original colors is always a safe bet.