Bingo! I found that one, approx 60x25 mm. Image Unavailable, Please Login Not sure it's the right one, I will have to look further (had no time nor room or multimeter to investigate) but looks good. Thank you again Mark for your help!
Did you find the flasher? I am not sure the previous photo is of a flasher. Looks more like a condenser to me. Since your car is a late 4.9 liter it may use the Bosch flasher found on Ghiblis. It is black and square. The same Bosch flasher was used on the Detomaso Pantera. Ivan Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hi Ivan, Thank you for your interest. No I have had no time yet to explore further. I concur however with your observation, my grey cylinder looks indeed more like a condenser... Thank you very much with your picture of the Bosch flasher, very helpful for my future investigation. I will report when I can look at it. Serge
I have sourced that Bosch flasher, not easy to find. Fortunately it is also used on some Lancia's and also VW Käfer's and sold at cheaper prices than when sold as Maserati parts! Today I could explore a little bit the under dash of my Indy (no much room, nor time for an extensive search...). I did not find the black Bosch flasher but instead that silver Bosch alternator regulator 0190601006 under the steering column, in akward condition! (one of the bolting holes of the bracket looks melted ). Well, at least it seems that it works for the time being... Image Unavailable, Please Login Ivan, would you know where the black flasher may be positioned under the dash of the Indy (or Ghibli possibly)?
On a Ghibli the flasher is located in front of the passenger seat. No idea if an Indy uses the same flasher nor where it is located. There is an electronic version of that voltage regulator. Much more accurate and avoids the voltage fluctuations which many times are experienced with the original ones. https://www.ebay.com/itm/124416010290? Ivan
I am still stcuck with my issue of flashing lights, not being able to locate the flasher unit. Here is the electrical diagram of Indy 4900 showing the flasher unit (number 52, on top right), the related fuse number 12 (on bottom right) and the commodo unit (number 72 on bottom left): Image Unavailable, Please Login On this diagram, the shape of the flasher unit looks like the one shown by Mark, with a bracket on its top, but that does not mean it shows the right shape as that may have been unchanged in the diagram when passing from 4200 to 4900. When exploring under the dashboard, I have been unable to locate the flasher unit. See pictures on the driver's side, left of steering column where the likely components seem to be the regulator already mentioned (A) and some safety unit (B): Image Unavailable, Please Login And on left of steering column, nothing but a ventilation nozzle (A): Image Unavailable, Please Login And on the right of the passenger's side, a capacitor (A) already mentioned, also on the right of the fuse box and above radio components: Image Unavailable, Please Login And on the left of these radio components (with no room between them and below the dashboard), numerous components behind the fusebox but mostly vacuum related: View attachment 3818993 So, I am at a loss, here... Any additional tip on what looks like this flasher unit and where i its exact location would be bery much appreciated!
The car was imported in France by THEPENIER in october 1975 if you have some nice pictures do not hesitate
"B" appears to be a hazard switch. I wonder if the flasher relay is incorporated within that switch. You can use an electronic wire tracer to locate the flasher relay. Place the transmitter on the wire of one of the turn signal bulbs. Ivan
Issues are piling up As I attempted to start the car to move it out of my narrow garage for looking more comfortably under dash, I just broke the accelerator cable and the accelerator pedal while willing to floor the pedal to flood the carbs... Pedal attachment to its lever is now broken and I fixed it temporarily with wires: Image Unavailable, Please Login On the spare parts catalog, the kind of pulley that can rotate on the lever is not shown. It's not clear to me how the lever and the pedal interact, whether the pulley allows the lever rolling against the pedal until some stopping point at the end of the pedal... Any idea so that I can attempt fixing that? More problematic is the probable break of the attachment of the accelerator cable to the shaft of that lever (or the cable itself), on the other side of the body panel, under the engine bay. Pushing on my pedal did indeed not increase engine rpms, understandably as the throttle cable is now loose and cannot be pulled by the pedal: Image Unavailable, Please Login I have to look under the car when I can jack the car in my garage, which will not be an easy task. I see that the complete accelerator cable may be sourced from MIE in the US but it is not the most practical and cheap sourcing for Belgium: https://maseratinet.com/fr/maserati/quattroporte-i/maserati-indy-maserati-ghibli-khamsin-indy-mexico-late-quattroporrte-accelerator-cable-v8-gt-69872 Image Unavailable, Please Login Could a more simple cable be used, assuming that only its end is broken, by keeping part of the existing cable and its sheath ? The only good news (if I could even say that...) is that I have found an electrical component uner the glovebox that could be the flasher unit. It is of the cylindrical model and deeply embedded behind the radio unit and a kind of big metallic cylinder and electrical stuff that I will have to remove: Image Unavailable, Please Login In case the flasher is the culprit, do you think that the new model (in black plastic) that I have sourced could replace the old model (I would say yes, in principle, but not sure)? A lot of questions, hoping that I can get some advice...
Some news on the accelerator command. I managed to lift the car with a rolling jack (a PITA in the narrow space of my garage) and to access to the command lever under the car. The cable end looks to be attached through a nut: Image Unavailable, Please Login The cable itself has indeed perished, probably from rust down there. When playing with the carbs command I could narrow both cracked ends to have a better look: Image Unavailable, Please Login I think that the best temporary fixing would be to insert a piece of new cable inbetween the two cracked ends through bolted attachments. That will be certainly challenging due to the difficulty of access. Do you think that this would be solid enough (considering the weakened ends) at least to drive the car to my indy and have it repaired by him?
I got accelerator cable, handbrake cable and some small cables from https://www.taflexa.de/ I sent old ones, they produced new ones that are very exact copies. Not expensive at all. Juha
In regards to the ‘flasher unit’ assuming the new ‘cube style unit’ has the same number of connector pins as the old ‘can style unit’ it will work properly. The older ‘can style’ unit has a bimetallic strip inside that makes and brakes the circuit, while the ‘cube style’ is electronic and more reliable and with a consistent ‘flashing rate’
I finally succeeded in repairing my accelerator cable. 304 SS parts and solid cutting pliers to fine tune the cable length: Image Unavailable, Please Login Crawling under the car: Image Unavailable, Please Login All good now: Image Unavailable, Please Login Engine roaring back . I can now address my electrical issues!
Hi all, so I've owned my Rame over Black '71 Indy 4700 for 17 years, and I've been registered here for almost as long (I think), but I wasn't even aware of the Indy thread. Great idea, it's nice to read about you and your cars! Well, mine has always been running well, and I've travelled a total of 25.000 km/16.000 mls in it with very few problems. The longest trip so far was from Stuttgart to Monaco for a visit of the spectacular Grand Prix Historique in 2022, a fuss-free round trip of 2000 km. However, if I see room for improvement on my Indy, it is its kind of leisurely performance. Although the engine had been rebuilt using a larger bore (displacement is now 4.9l) and Ghibli cams, it feels weak. At one point in my ownership I went through the hassle of retiming the camshafts at my local shop, which indeed improved things a lot at higher rpm, but low down there's not much. At the time the mechanic was already 65 years+, and I'm not sure how accurately he did it, because there's neither a mark on the crankshaft pulley nor on the camshafts themselves. Instead I had calculated the positions of the nr.1 piston at the various valve events. Looking back, that seemed to be a rather optimistic method. Any idea of how to do this properly (Ivan maybe)? Thanks, Matthias
I'm certain that Ivan can help you download an excellent article from the MOCNA club archives o n hist website. Stan Bishop authored an excellent, totally comprehensive article about how to do this. I, then a total amateur, followed this because I had a USA spec 4.9L V8 which allegedly had the emissions friendly cam timing. As it turned out mine was already in European spec. Be extremely careful about cam lobe snap back when doing this or the chains can jump a tooth in the bowls of the engine. Best of luck.
Welcome Matthias, You’ll find lots of useful material on Ivan’s website as already mentioned thecarnut.com I had some issues with my Indy (4.2) performance wise (running rich and backfiring on the over run and general sluggishness) After several ‘experts’ had a ‘fiddle’ with the carburettors with no improvement I found a new mechanic who maintains a fleet of exotics belonging to a collector who diagnosed issues with the distributor setup, once sorted the Indy has been transformed and now ‘pulls like an express train’ in all gears. Cheers, Mark
Thank you both! Correct ignition, timing and otherwise, is always an issue. I've had my original distributor converted to breaker-less, and the fuel consumption improved right away due to cleaner combustion at higher rpm. I had it on a rolling -oad dyno back then, and the amount of unburnt petrol in the exhaust gasses had dropped considerably. In terms of timing I'm running the Euro spec, but how accurate it is I'm not sure. With static timing adjusted correctly, there's definitely a lot of advance at high rpm.
I just found the mentioned MOCNA article on Ivan's website (assembly of an early Ghibli engine). The difference seems to be that there a clear marks on the camshafts which are missing on mine. Otherwise an excellent source!
Mark, I've been reading your comment again, and I wonder whether your advance has been set by the new mechanic to stock specs. Or did he know a secret that makes it perform better than stock? Any idea what the advance curve looks like? Cheers, Matthias
Hi Matthias, As far as I know he set it to stock specs as my Indy has the original distributor with points and the Bosch CDI. It is a euro spec car delivered new in Italy then imported into Australia. Mark
I was the winning bidder & bought this collection of parts. Now I just need to figure how I'm going to pick them up. Yikes! I only need 4 or 5 small items that I haven't been able to find anywhere. Most of rest are of no use to me. If anyone needs anything from this collection, send me a PM. I have a complete car (a later model, early 4900) with a completely different interior. So no need for any seats, console, dash, door cards etc. I also have no need for any body panels, or the gear box (I have an auto. trans.) I'll be disposing of all those items in a timely manner since they take up the most room in storage. I'd love to spread these parts around and keep our cars on the road. Cheers, fellow Indy guys!
