The BORA

Ran across my stash of this stuff and they still offer it @ $35/quart in liquid only form now.

http://www.aerotouchups.com/at120q----qu120.html

Instructions attached.

Hope that helps someone sometime.


Bob S.

 

Hi.
I am considering upgrading my aircon system in my Bora. The dilemma i am having is wanting to changing the original compressor. However i cannot procure a pulley to suit the polyflex belt to drive the rotary compressor. I would be interesed how this was overcome by anyone who has upgraded to a rotary compressor.
Greg.

 

Hello---

IMO, the pulley is the least of your problems.

Switching to a rotary means, inter alia, a switch to the much less efficient R134 (from the original R12).
If the Bora's system is to retain its cooling capacity you will need a much larger/efficient condenser, a different expansion valve and new BARRIER hoses to contain the R134 as its molecules are so much smaller than R12 that it will leak right through the older hoses used for R12.

Then you can start testing to see what amount of R134 this new system will work best with.

Or you can get a new York compressor from the USA for a couple of hundred bucks go find some R12 which remains widely available across the globe, and enjoy the amazing AC Maserati installed in your Bora.

Over 40 degrees C outside today, my Bora AC blowing 3.5 deg C.

Regards.

 

Boroligist.
Took your advise stuck with the York compressor. Freon is unavailable in Australia so will have to go with 134a. Motor has been fully reconditioned and installed in the car after a 4 year absence.
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Hi---

Your entire restoration looks absolutely fabulous.
Congratulations.

DO NOT USE 134a.
YOU HAVE AN EXCELLENT R12 SUBSTITUTE MADE BY AN AUSTRALIAN COMPANY:

https://hychill.com.au/

Talk to them.
You will be happy.

Regards.

 

Finally. The gearbox and motor have been placed in the cradle and united with the car
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View attachment 2580418 View attachment 2580419

 

Boralogist. I will contacy Hychill. Thanks for the headsup.
Greg

 

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It all looks so nice and clean. You must be excited!

This is all going to be kind of late now ...

Hard to tell from the photos but what about heat shields? The one for the starter is a must.
The one for the gas tank as well. Stock it had a pretty miserable 1" piece of fiberglass behind that aluminum shield. Certainly today we can do much better.
Due to all the heat issues I encountered I made double wall SS heat shield and added plenty more than stock. Given the radiant nature of headers I made a shield for the fuel pump(s) as well as for all of the LHM equipment opposite the headers on the LH side. There are also shields for the Ebrake system cables which was an OEM shield. I covered my Ebrake cable housings with silicone heater hose as well. I suffered a melting of the internal nylon liner and had new cables and hardware fabricated out of SS at a sailboat rigging shop. They even had a trident embossed in the hardware! LOL

I agree with the R12 or a substitute. I still have a cache of the stuff but there have been some decent substitutes over the years. If you find one that works then stock up! They tend to disappear or get crazy expensive.
You can get a Sanden style rotary compressor which will handle both R12 and R134a. I can't help you on the clutch though ... One of my friends who was a long time Bora owner discovered that one of the big flaws in the HVAC system was a too small sized intake hole for the squirrel cage fans and that once he enlarged that the system performed much better. He also added another outlet for the passenger at knee level, horizontally in the dash with a vent from a Porsche 928. His car is the one featured in all the Bora Specialist vendor ads in the MIE magazine. His AC always worked well and he had the old York compressor.

There is a well know flaw in the brake line design that goes from front to rear on the tops of the subframe. Due to the heat from the headers the 2nd from the front on the RHD side wood corrode quickly and fall apart due to the insulating vinyl hose they used over the pipe to protect it from the fold over tabs. Lot's of ways to address that now though.

Keep the heat away from you inner CV joint boots. I've exploded plenty of those. In my amatureist overzealous desire to do a great job I go them sealed up 100%. Better to allow for "some" breathing. After two very disappointing long desert sojourns for high speed driving with heat due to exploded boost I finally got it figured out.

I went with SS braided Teflon lined brake hoses and especially from the LHM pump to the body. I had two OEM ones start leaking on me. Lot's of stress on that one. With adapter fittings and the better hose all of that stopped. There's probably even better stuff now.

Yesterday while having mu 99 Suburban serviced for a new steering box I also had them flush the hydroboost system which powers the steering box in a variable fashion as well as provides boost to the brakes.
I had to do a bit of reading up on how it works so I could converse with the mechanic and make certain everything gets addressed properly. But I was struck by how similar it is theory and operation in some ways to the LHM system. Even some the self checks you can perform after turning the key off and seeing how many full power applications you can get. On that front it can't hold a candle to the LHM system. But my power seats in the Suburban are electric ...

Have fun and enjoy.

Bob S.

 

Bob.
Thank you for your detailed response.
I had all the heat shield remade from stainless steel and attached the stamped aluminium heat shield material including the gas tank. I will try and get some photos and post. Dissipating the heat has always been 1 of my top priorities . I didn't consider a shield for the fuel pump but that is now on the list
I also had the headers ceramic coated hoping this will also help..Like all these things you dont really know if you have it covered until you try it out. Fingers crossed.
I stuck with the York compressor . I purchased a new one but i am still investigating which gas i will use as R12 is not available here in Australia.
I went with the Teflon SS braided hoses for all the LHM brake lines including from the pump to the body..
I hope to be on the road with the car by late September and i'm sure there will be some further sorting out to do. I also replaced all the hydraulic lines so on start up. i hope i don't have too many leaks in the lines.
It is getting exciting and cant wait to turn the key for the 1st time and hear it raw.
Greg

 

After I experienced massive vapor lock in Denver, which is at 5,000 ft, on a very warm early spring day I took a look in that gas tank and could see the gasoline churning with heat. That scared the crap out of me! My cars was a special case at that time due to the horrific emissions system on the car so you won't see the sorts of conditions I did back then but headers so close to a gas tank and the fuel pumps isn't a very good idea.

The connections to the the two brake accumulators involve some special Maserati only pieces and they can cause fits. I wish they had spent the time and put spin on ones there as well. I've never disturbed the stuff on my pedal assembly but I got the pool of Vulcan blood under the drivers seat and thought it was the seat cylinder but it was just the O-rings in the connectors so those can be a pain.

Bleed the accessories circuit well and then the brakes. You'll probably have to bleed the brakes again after driving and I always had to bleed mine periodically to keep them from getting too grabby.

I beleive the USA cars were required to have a flow limiting valve in the braking circuit which mine didn't get. I beleive mine began life as European chassis and got cut/welded into a USA version. We saw evidence of this under the undercoating in the engine compartment. BTW, there was NO PAINT under that! How about yours? It was the last one off the production line by chassis number at least so maybe that's why I didn't get the valve? So when I bleed the brakes it really comes out fast because there's no flow limiter.

Once you're confident that the system is clean you don't have to toss out the LHM that's bled out. But don't pour it back into the reservoir right away. Save it for the next round of bleeding as you can introduce air bubbles that way.

Filling the clutch circuit reservoir with standard brake fluid is a nightmare! Cover the area well with protection and take some anti inflamatories first! I used silicone brake fluid. Boy, a Khamsin type power assisted clutch really would have been nice too!

I pre-lubed my engine with a homemade jig using a paint gun and compressed air. A variation of the same tool I used to spray all the insides and cavities of the frame pieces with POR15 paint that are welded to the body with after I had rust treated them with the same gadget. I think Binks makes it, it's for painting the inside of pipes. Neat little gadget!

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Take your time and everything should be fine. You might want to leave the carpeting task until after you've sorted all those LHM connections inside the cockpit. Ing. Alfieri kind of went wild with the all the hydraulics. I think the idea was if you already have the high pressure hydraulic system then accessories for the headlights, seat & pedals are much more compact than electric motors would have been back then? In a tight quarters car that's important. The only bad leak I've ever had was the O-rings for connecting the seat cylinder. It did take out the carpet as the oil deteriorated the rubber backing.

Be sure to video your first drives and adventures and don't get any speeding tickets right away.
I got one for 80 mph the second day I owned mine out in the middle of Utah.

 

Bob..
For sure carpeting will be the final task and will listen to your advise in bleeding the accessories lines prior to the brake calipers. Your correct in having to bleed a few time before the system is fully bled as i suffered this with my Merak. Every time i would start up there was a horrific chatter of the brake pedal until the system was properly bled.
I fish oiled the inside cavaties of the engine cradle turning it over a few times to make sure the oil spread throughout the cradle. POR15 is a wonderful product both the upper side and underside the floor were coated with the POR15. The finish is remarkable.
That sure is a nifty little gadget you have for spraying.
I have attached a photo of the new heat shields made above the headers protecting the gear shift linkages and another below the headers. One of my previous posting highlighted the shiel for the starter motor.
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Somewhere on this forum I detailed about alignment of that shift linkage along the side of the block. Mine needed shim washers to eliminate the binding caused by misaligned needle bearings in those two support fixtures. I don't know if every car needed this though. Once aligned the change in shifting was like night and day. The heat there from the headers dries out the grease prematurely so I encapsulated the the rod between the brackets in a piece of straight silicon heater hose, the rigid type and added lubrication seals at each end. That looks like the shield above the headers. That's the only stock heat shield I have with the asbestos still in place.

 

Bob.
You maybe in a position to offer me some assistance with the gear shift assembly. I will try and find your alignment details later if i have an alignment issue.
1st up you maybe able to advise how the roller bearings are retained within their supports parts 58 &59 as i cant see a groove for the retainer ring ...
Regards
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Sorry, I don't remember. When I did mine it was still pretty low mileage so I may not have replaced them.

Those OEM rubber bellows were utter crap on my car. Perhaps MIE or someone else has a much improved version by now? It was a kind of a sponge black rubber that just fell apart. I replaced mine with orange silicone boots made expressly to work with those knuckle joints. Mine are symmetrical though. Tight on each end bud bulbous in the middle. They've done the trick. Even with the heat shields it's very hot there. After particularly hot and long sojourns in the desert I did have some trouble with the end seals being pushed out on that long sliding shaft portion because of the heat expansion of air and grease inside that section of hose. Probably some kind of breather would solve that.

The alignment of the two supports just involves using shim washers under the mounting tabs until the shaft has zero binding as you push forward and backwards or in rotation. Not rocket science but the Italians are notorious for allowing for adjustability where they can't machine stuff accurately. This is one of those but they just didn't bother to align mine ...

 

I think I got the boots from Lovejoy. They have an extensive catalog online.

 

Maserati Bora
1.
1972 Maserati SOLD $207,909 USD
Bora 4.7 EST. PRICE $161.42K-$225.99K USD
EXTERIOR Red
RM SOTHEBY'S
INTERIOR Cream
Lot 129 London
ODOMETER 56509 mi
CHASSIS Nº AM117 161
September 5, 2018 1:46PM (EST)

1972 Maserati Ghibli
1.
1972 Maserati HIGH BID $1,033,091 USD
Ghibli SS 4.9 Spyder EST. PRICE $1.1M-$1.49M USD
EXTERIOR Bianco Polo
RM SOTHEBY'S
INTERIOR Blue
Lot 128 London
ODOMETER 22278 mi
CHASSIS Nº AM115/S49 1251
September 5, 2018 1:43PM (EST)

 

Hi all.
I am coming down to the final items for the assembly of my Bora. Referring to the parts manual it only shows 2 low pressure oil hoses exiting from the bottom of the tank.
I am certain that 1 hose leads to the regulator and the other inside the cabin tunnel and connects to the oil distribution manifold for the pedal box etc.
My tank has a 3rd outlet and i am confused if this should be utilised or just terminated. Any assistance would be appreciated.
Looking at this photo below the right hand hose is connected to the regulator and the centre hose is feed up the tunnel.
The 3rd which is the larger size is the 1 in question.
The 2 smaller outlets are blanked off ..
Greg
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Hi Greg,

I don't have access to look at mine to see if I have the identical connections on the bottom of the tank I don't recall having any rubber caps on any of them either? But it's been a very long time for me since I did all of this. Maybe you got a different style canister though?

 

Hi all,

Can somebody let me know any recent sales on late model Bora vehicles, 78 model number one of last 10-15 made would be great?

 

Can you translate that, maybe by fleshing this out in a decent sentence construction?

 

Two weeks later ... got it figured out yet?

 

Sure -- any recent Bora sales?

Interested if there are any recent sales especially for late models, one of the last 10-15 cars made; were any sold recently and then for how much?