The BORA

ground cables are tight, dirty but not corroded. I think theres a small chance I can sneak the alternator out the bulkhead service hatch but would be more inclined to try if someone else here has done it successfully or has a better option.

 

I think the better option is to drive the car somewhere that the alternator output can be checked without having to remove it.

Ivan

 

some questions about the alternator wiring. The alternator has been swapped for a delco CS130 internally regulated alternator. The cars harness at the alternator has red and blue wires, these are bridged together and connected to the L or light terminal on the alternator. The idiot light bulb on the dash is lit with the key on engine not running so that should be enough to get the alternator to charge. But I'd like to look at the OEM voltage regulator to make sure no wiring fubars right there. So first question is: where is the voltage regulator? Ideally I would like to bypass it altogehter and run the wire from the idiot light direclty to the L terminal.

Heres some pictures. The car harness at the alternator has the aforementioned blue and red wires that go to the OEM regulator, but there is also a black wire. From what I can see in my harness there is a male spade terminal broken off in the plug for the black wire (see pic). Second question: should that black wire be connected to something?

Lastly there is a loose grey wire. It emerges as one of two wires from a harness, the other wire, black goes to the oil pressure sensor for the idiot light. third question is: what does this grey wire go to? Edit: per diagram black goes to idiot light sender and grey guage sender. But look like my car has black going to the idiot light sender and the guage does seem to work correctly. weird.

Even with the owners manual and the extra wiring diagram book from MIE I cannot answer these questions. Does anybody know the answers?

I will have to take the car somewhere to test the alternator like Ivan suggested, but if its bad I see no way to remove it. Maybe pull the oil filter and slide it down that way?

 

This is why several owners have expanded the size of that opening and added another door behind the driver's seat. I've got that alternator on my Biturbo because the stock Marelli one was so weak I nearly drove my car into the bay one a very dark night when I mistook a boat launch ramp for a parking lot entrance in Mystic Seaport. It's a great upgrade that wasn't available when I got my original Bosch alternator on the Bora beefed up to 95 amps?

So I assume they swapped the pulley over from the original because of those special belts.

There are a ton of self help websites on alternator upgrades. I did my Biturbo one 12 years ago so I don't remember all the details. Mine was a Pep Boys rebuilt for a Corvette. You no longer need the regulator but with my beefed up Bosch I ended up using a very nice regulator from a Mercedes that was solid state. I'm pretty sure it's on the Bora parts xref list. Ivan references it here: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/posts/150001264/

The big difference on modern alternators is that the better ones have a wire that runs directly to the + terminal of the battery to better sense the batteries voltage for installations (just like the Bora) where the battery is a long ways from the alternator.

 

As I try to educate myself on the alternator wiring issue, theres some sites that insist the sense wire is unnecessary, and some that say it very necessary for longer runs from the alternator to the battery such as the Bora. I can temporarily run a sense wire to the battery and see if the volt meter perks up a bit. It would be weird for the car to be wired in a way that made the battery go dead for almost 2,000 miles of use but who knows?

 

Well my alternator wiring on my Bora is stock except that I ran a piece of very thick welding cable now heat shielded with silicone heater hose in place of the stock battery cable which burned up on the way home from my original purchase like a lot of other things. Those GD thermal reactors! If your installed alternator has the extra sense wire it would be best to run it up to the + terminal on the battery. if not just connect it where you can But at this point your stock voltage regulator is superfluous.
I suspect you're replaced alternator has gone bad. How old is the battery?

Do not forget that the pulley on that alternator is special.

Hope this helps.

 

I've always had very good reasons for any modifications and we've all seen and heard of botched repairs mostly electrical or like Bora 1046 which ran through your shop so you are well aware of what a mess that car was. It's gotten even worse, now missing it's seats and it had a rear hatch latch failure with it being dragged & ground on the highway. That's a very sad case. Please do not mistakenly categorize my Bora with one like that. I suffered a lot of heat damage on my maiden purchase voyage from Oklahoma City to SF. Which is why I've gone to such lengths to protect things from heat. I got nary a 3 blocks from picking it up when it spewed coolant where upon I returned to the sellers agent and we discovered that one of the fans had seized and gotten so hot that it melted fan's housing and jammed. Not exactly an auspicious start. MIE wanted a fortune and five days to get me a replacement so we removed it and went up to Mercedes dealer where I got an immediate bingo. The rest of the trip got even hotter for the car and this was very late April. It's a along and funny story (now) which someday I will reveal.

I also decided to take my Bora on extended and very fun hi speed excursions into the desert. Any car from that era requires additional preparation in order to do that so my experiences are much more extreme than the typical club events. Over the years I think I've repeatedly pointed this out. My issues with the car are more extreme than those of most owners.

My Bora is currently in long term storage with the fluids drained (sans LHM) awaiting our relocation (hopefully) from an impossible living space for doing any work on it. I no longer work on my operable cars and paying anyone to work on the Bora or Espada is something I cannot afford.

 

the battery that came with the car went dead so I put a new one in a few days ago. Thats when I started watching the volt guage. It was dipping below 12v at idle with the ac on. when I got home after a longish ride, I put the trickle charger on and it was quite discharged. Took over a day to top it off which shouldn't be the case if the alternator was keeping it charged.

I do want to run the sense wire to the alternator but putting a light in the battery compartment I see no rays of light on the floor and wonder whats the best way to run that wire? If I have to drill a hole it would be good to know where to drill/not drill if someone else has done this already. Or maybe there is an opening already there and I didnt' see it.

Looking at the wiring diagrams till cross eyed I've decided that the way the alternator is wired with the L terminal going to both the red and blue wires on the alternator harness is not correct. Not sure its doing anything bad but the idiot light white wire is connected directly to the red wire at the original voltage regulator per the diagrams so I will just connect the L terminal to the red wire ie: directly to the idiot light which is correct for this alternator. The idiot light bulb is working, I checked. I have no idea what the black wire on the alternator harness goes to, it has a broken off spade terminal in it now. Perhaps it was a ground wire as shown in the owners manual diagram. This alternator doesn't use a separate ground wire.

That leaves one more wire that is sometimes connected called F or field and that usually goes to 12v switched and the closest easiest 12v switched wire is the green power wire to the fuel pump switch on the right side of the engine. Easy to connect to with a female to double male spade terminal doodad.

Hopefully with all that the alternator will function properly. People also hook up this alternator with nothing but the battery lead and the idiot light and no Sense or Field connections but since Im having an issue I will be OCD about it. Hopefully it will work properl then \but if not I will just have to go to the alternator shop to check it out. I know they will find the Bora an absolute thrill to work on (not).

Lastly, the two wires for oil pressure guage and idiot light are reversed according to the wiring diagram. Grey goes to idiot light sender and black to oil guage sender and thats the opposite of how mine was hooked up. I looked in the MIE online catalog to identify both senders. Never the less I did get what I think were accurate oil pressure readings with the wires reversed so not sure what the deal is with that. I guess I'll find out when I start the car up after rewiring it all.

 

Can you describe the routing of that battery cable? To me the stock cable looks to be 10g, or maybe 8g at best and its a long run. Its should be like you said welding cable or something huge for a run that long. If Im running a sense wire to the battery it may be a good time to run a monster battery cable as well.

 

That was in 1989? Do you really expect me to remember that? What I do remember is it was so difficult trying to disconnect everything from the engine in order to drop the sub-frame that I made quality alternate connection points for everything in easy to access locations. So the battery cable/starter connection is now along the sub frame covered in shrink wrap. I would guess that you could just follow the main cable and utilize small wire ties.

A word about wire coloring and Maserati. I spent over a year chasing a bug with my ignition. I have the late QPIII, Porsche 928 style ignition box so there are no points in the dizzy. When I put the fresh engine and sub-frame back in the restored and upgraded engine compartment I decided to the completely replace the ignition harness from the dizzy to the ignition box. That harness was just a pair of wires in a very battered and somewhat melted vinyl cover. A red and a black wire ... eventually I discovered that what was black at one end of the harness was red at the other end! Don't absolutely trust the color coding! The effects from that were quite mystifying to me at the time. I had to rotate the distributor to get it to start which should have been my big clue. But at that time backyard mechanics like me didn't have access to sophisticated ignition analyzers. I wasn't certain it was an ignition issue so I shipped my four webers to a well known carburation specialist in Los Angeles and they flow tested everything. Then the Rodney King riots broke out and their facility was right in the middle of the action! Damn I was so pissed when I found out out the actual cause of my Bora woes.

My guess is that your alternate is kaput but if that 3rd wire is connected to nothing ... IDK. It can't be that hard to find a 12V+ spot to try and see if that straightens every thing out. Running it all the way up to battery is the best scenario but get to just get it functioning that's probably not necessary

It sounds like you current have yet another mis-wired Maserati , specifically in the alternator circuit.

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This really isn't all that complicated, certainly a lot easier than my sabotaged Bora was!
Remain calm and carry on ...

 

just in case...Does anyone have pics/measurements of the enlarged firewall access hatches? I have the MOCA download but its just a description. Says CAD diagrams available from Mr. Groth but that was almost 20 year ago.
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This help?
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I made mine as big as possible and the panel behind the driver's seat does show a bit on the tunnel side. I don't know if it was George Marin or myself that supplied Claus with any final dimensions. We were the first to do this and I have to admit that I found it a bit nerve wracking.

I also removed the engine compartment window and had a local glass & window shop in SF turn into a sealed thermopane window. That stopped the dust and dirt from fouling the inside of the glass, added some thermal insulation and noise reduction. You utilize the old rubber gasket to hold the window in place to the frame. The center rubber divider can bee very neatly trimmed with a narrow kitchen peeler.

 

Thanks!!! I will study the diagram. For now just interested in accessing the alternator. I read on FC that it can be R and R through the existing opening/panel. And someone on FB Maserati Bora page says they’ve done it on three different cars. So I may not need to operate on the fire wall but it’s good to be prepared just in case. Thanks

 

Yes but ... that's probably with the original alternator. Yours may be a bit larger. Have fun ...

 

Oh crap

 

Alternator completely rewired. Appears to be working. Shows 14v at the guage at 2000 rpm vs 12 before. I’m too pooped to discuss it now. Details manana. ‍

 

GOOD!

 

Riddle me this: how does someone drive a car for 10 years with an incorrectly wired/inadequately wired alternatory? Answer: drive it very little (3,000 miles in 10 years) and or change the battery every year or so. The battery that came with the car was just under two years old when it went dead. Replacing the battery and keeping an eye on the volt meter it became clear that the car was not charging the battery. At the engine rebuild or shortly thereafter about 10 years/3000 miles ago a 150 amp Delco style CS130 alternator was installed in order to power two Spaal extreme fans (total draw 52 amps if what I read online is correct).

This alternator has 5 connections: 1 for the battery whereby it charges the battery (in the Bora this is connected to the starter), and 4 smaller leads: S for sense, F for field, L for light and P for pulse which connects to onboard computers and is not used in this application.

The way the alternator was hooked up was that the L lead was wired to both the red and blue wires in the car. These wires run to the external voltage regulator. The red wire at the voltage regulator is connected to the same terminal as a white wire that goes to the idiot light. I believe the factory alternatory had a ground lead that connected to the black wire in the alternator harness. This connector had a male spade terminal broken off for that wire. The Delco alternator is grounded through its body. The main lead for charging the car appears to be an 8g wire. That may have been just adequate for a factory 45amp alternator. But for a 150amp alternator a 1/0 guage wire is called for.

Took six hours working through the paper back book sized access hatch but here's the update that appears to have fixed the issue:

• wire the S lead directly to the battery + terminal by running a wire all the way to the front of the car
• wire the L lead to the red wire only which in essence is wiring it directly to the idiot light
• wire the F wire to the + fuel pump wire on the toggle switch near the coil so that even if the idiot light bulb burns out the alternator will still ignite
• replace the 8g wire with a 1/0g wire from the alternator's Battery terminal to the starter.

With that done I had tighten that belt. Finally managed to do it, sitting on the passenger floor I used a 4' breaker bar to push the alternator to tighten the belt by leaning back on it, then reached down with a racheting box end wrench to tighten the adjustment bolt at the bottom of the alternator. At this moment, I realized that the Marquis de Sade had nothing on Maserati design engineers.

Ive now got 14+V at 2000RPM, and
with the headlights and AC on I've got right around 14V at 2000rpm
at idle with headlights and AC on I've got 12.5V

No idea if the Sense lead or the heavier cable to the starter was what did the job, maybe a little of both. I will disconnect the Sense lead and see if that changes anything at the voltmeter and report back.

hopefully thats the end of this episode.

As an aside, the colors of the wires for the oil pressure sender and oil pressure idiot light sender are reversed in my car. Wiring them as per the diagram made them inoperable. Friday build after heavy lunch with vino at Modena I suppose.

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So many Maserati's fall victim to the type of former owner you describe. A good PPI should have picked all of this up. Fortunately this car now has an owner with enough skills to figure out most of this stuff out and cares about the car. This is typical fettling for a lot of Vintage Italian cars though. My Espada was and still is far worse. Once setup, Boras are not hard to maintain. Your alternator project would have been a lot easier with those enlarged inspection panels and with the car up on a lift. A second mechanic is always nice to have as well.

The inspection panels is a big job that requires multiple fabrications skills including fiberglass, aluminum panel beating and a bit of interior work. It's probably best to leave that for next year you want to do it.
What's your deadline for the show?

 

Celebration Exotic Car show is March 29 and the Rally is the next day. Just planning to redye the seats and detail the crap out of the car before then. I got lucky - the local agent and dye mixer for Colourlock leather restoration products lives near me. Hand delivered the dye and went over the correct application of all the preparative chemicals and dye with me for about 2 hours yesterday. He agreed that the dark discolorations on my seats were not just "patina" but filth and redying them would not negatively affect the value if done correctly. I have a swatch of Connolley 1603 leather from UK that is the original color of my seat and they matched the dye to that. I have to test it and match the sheen myself by adding duller to the dye or topcoat as I go. If anyone is interested in the dying process I can post more on that here as I do it all.

 

I should have known when as they backed it off the delivery truck, billowing white clouds of smoke came pouring out the all the vents on the roof and rear hatch that the car was not properly sorted.

I would never sell a car like that with so many issues. Not right.

 

Memories of LHM fun past:


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There are well known products for cleaning and conditioning the leather in preparation for a connoly redye.
You can remove the dirt WO adversely affecting the originally of the leather.
I think Ivan has a how-to on his website and there are also some the detailing section.

So ... about those side bolsters. The originals along with the headrests are made from a wonderfully comfortable latex foam but ... they deteriorate badly very easily. If you have bits of crumbly foam under the seats then it's already started. Mine did it @ 10 years and 3000 miles! I had the bolsters rebuilt out of layers of differing density foam so the inner side was still very comfortable but the outers were much more durable and that fixed everything. The shop was able to remove the leather and dye the entire seat plus the door panels.
If you look at Bora that haven't been restored you can see this typically on the drivers seat.

 

in my car it appears to have already been the victim of a craptastic redye. So the only reasonable option is to redo that. Correctly this time.

I’ve reviewed Ivan’s guide and I’ve done a few cars and a sofa so I feel confident enough to tackle it. I don’t think it’s going to look much worse in any case

rebuilding the bolster is a new thing