Good luck Elliot. Hope it works out! (And share pics!) (((-:
Finally got the clutch bled. It did not require any animal sacrifices to Neptune on a trident either. There was one major fubar and I want to post it here because I don't want anyone else to get frustrated as hell doing this like I did. I dont know if that fubar was actually the issue all along with bleeding it or something that just happened today but here goes: Last weekend I tried like hell with a friend to bleed that clutch. No matter how much we pumped the pedal and tried to bleed it, just couldn't' get it to get firm. (I know, thats what she said). After he left, I watched a video saying if you pinch the pressure hose with a vice grips pretty tight you can force air out of the master into the reservoir. It didn't say that you'd blow the pressure hose that way but thats what happened. Now I had ordered many parts in addition to the master and slave cylinders including a new high pressure hose. But the banjo fitting on that hose from MIE was much thinner than the OEM one or at least than what was on my car and there was no way I could seat the bolt tightly with the thin copper crush washers that came with it. I got 2.5mm copper washers that were bridged from BelMetric and I was able to mount that hose onto my master. The clevis that came with the new master was way too long. I had to remove the snap ring on the old and new MC's and swap out that actual rod. I did as good a bench bleed as I could and I remounted that master. Pedal all the way back toward the seat to bolt it in. I had already whined on here about the bleeding issue and on advice of eorgoman here I got a Motive pressure bleeder. The special 1.75" Girling reservoir fitting had to be ordered directly from Motive. Problem one: Couldn't build up any pressure. The Girling cap they sent did NOT thread onto the reservoir. Correct diameter wrong threads. OK. Since I was doing a total clutch hydraulic rehab I had also ordered a new reservoir. And luckily the Motive bleeder came with a threaded fitting for an air adapter quick disconnect. So I Mcgivered my own pressure cap for the reservoir from the old cap. Pumped it up to 10psi and went to bleed the slave and almost nothing came out. WTF. Pushed on the clutch pedal. Soft and wouldn't come all the way back up. I played with this for about 2 hours and the thought of flat bedding the beast to Maserati and washing my hands of this repair crossed my mind several times. Was the clutch going to be the first repair I couldn't complete in decades of wrenching without getting a pro involved? I decided to take a quick peak at the reservoir to MC rubber hose. Was it still attached? It was attached BUT when I sat in the car to pump the pedal because I'm 6'4 I put the pedals all the way forward totally pinching the reservoir hose between the front of the MC and the frunk firewall. MF. Hours of time wasted. I move the pedals back and forth moving the supply hose out of the way. Pumped up the Motive and opened the slave bleeder and a gush of fluid and air came out. Pumped the pedal a bit and rebled the slave until no bubbles and I had a firm pedal. Went for a test drive and all is well. I only write this novella so that no one else makes that same stupid mistake. I wish I could get those hours of my life back. I'm lucky the hose didn't pop off the reservoir nipple or master and flood the foot well with brake fluid. I also wonder if that hose wasn't also pinched last weekend making it impossible to get a firm pedal then, and if I could have done this job without wasting money on a pressure bleeder? Anyway if anyone wants to buy the MIE MC pressure hose I've included a photos of that special copper crush washer from Bel Metric. I think used the same exact ones on the carbs. They are much easier to install than two separate washers.
10/10 for persistence and detective work! Just the kind of thing that would have been in the tech tips part of VCM magazine. that banjo,washer looks really neat too. hope you get some good driving in. M PS. Someone paid $50k for Bora 204 on BaT. Nor sure quite why.
The numbers engine and gearbox are only valuable for the car they come in. The car sold will require significant work to resurrect and will be underwater from day one. Maybe things will turn around for the Bora in the collector's market but past history doesn't seem to support that. The car is good for parts only in my opinion.
The rubber low pressure hose from the reservoir to the master cylinder got pinched between the front edge of the master cylinder and the front firewall when I moved the pedals forward. No brake fluid could reach the master cylinder.
My Bora has never done that and because of my long legs my pedals need to be as far forward as I can get them. It shouldn't do that.
Well, you have to consider a few things. One is that my hose may not be original, it may be longer than original so that it has enough slack to get itself into trouble, or perhaps yours is shorter than original so it never happens to yours. Also the hose is on a banjo fitting with a nipple and that nipple can be moved through a 360 degree arc allowing that hose to point forward, left, right rearward or any direction in between and that can determine if the hose is positioned in a place where it can get hug up or pinched between the MC and firewall. Lastly if you aren't moving the pedals fore and aft because like me your legs are long then it may never have the opportunity to get pinched. I only moved it all the way aft to make it easier to R and R the MC otherwise my pedals stay fully forward.
This is getting a bit kinky ... I've never liked the location of that reservoir. It's responsible for the only dent in my Bora!
Another one of Masertati Engineer's masochistic designs. Clearly the people who designed the cars never had to work on them LOL.
Oh I don't know ... the rest of the cars is not so bad once you put in rear firewall access panels. Replacing plugs is a piece of cake. Light years better than on a Lamborghini V12, ditto the carb linkage and plugs harness. You want an epic dose of automotive masochism? Buy a vintage v12 Lamborghini and the very worst is the Espada!
After struggling when disconnecting the front radiator hoses in the engine I think it is time to bite the bullet and open up the firewall. I normally do not like to modify my cars but not providing the Bora with a proper access panel was an engineering mistake.Working on a Pantera was much easier since that car was much better access to the front of the engine. It looks like you made that modification to your Bora. I would appreciate photos of the panel to get a better idea where to cut and how the end results should look. Was it one large panel or two or three? Ivan
I thought Claus Groth provided a drawing of where to cut? I made the driver's side panel much bigger than the other side which I enlarged quite a bit. I know of one Bora with a single removable panel and that's the Bora Jacques (MIE owner) did and I thought that was a disaster of a modification. At least the way he did it. I think I ran across some film photos with the engine out showing the two panels. I'll look for them. I can't find them That was my first foray into fiberglass fabrication and I didn't get the proper fasteners for the engine side, just long sheet metal screws. There is much better hardware now. Basically the cover for the dizzy gets added onto and the hole gets enlarge. The new covers are hand formed aluminum to fit the curve of the firewall bulkhead. with that 1.5"? hollow fiberglass wall glued to aluminum. So the covers plus wall fit the holes like a plug. Just like the original one does. The covers have matching naugahide on them and overlap the openings held in by screws into nothingness (get better fasteners). When you realize how little there is between you and that engine compartment it's a bit terrifying. That T mount on the back of the ZF is all that prevents it coming right on through in a very bad wreck. So the panels do show in the interior peaking out a bit from the inside edge of each seat but not on the outside edge. I don't it spoils the appearance of the car's interior.
4" for the driver's side is absurdly too narrow. Who is ANF 289? I did mine with the engine in the car and ran into zero problems. I was nervous cutting that vinyl though.
access is 85 miles away and presently it's up on my lift with a disassembled race car underneath it. Yours is up on a lift as well which makes getting inside it problematical because you don't want move anything. I have no idea why Claus made that drivers side door so narrow. It makes no sense. The fire wall /bulkhead is not structural. It's just a sandwich of fiberglass with insulation inside of it. My friend George Marin had already done his so I knew what expect. I think Claus has the height about right though might be a bit shorter? I believe Kerry McMullen bought his car so you could try him for some look see photos. I don't know where George's old car is now. That guy in the South bay who was advertising himself as Bora expert bought it and had the cosmetics redone.Remember, I did mine with the engine in the car and made them as big as possible WO going crazy. It's not super difficult. I think you'll be just fine.
Hi, I'm no one of note. I haven't been on here for a while so I have missed a lot. That diagram was originally made by Claus Groth and published in the MOCNA Technical Reference Library. I don't know why the driver's side access door was limited to 4", but the central convex curve of the firewall and the sliding door for the built-in "cabinet" on the left may be why. That said, there appears to be enough flat surface between the two to extend Groth's 4" wide access door to 7", maybe 8. In reference to problems removing tapered pins, the GearWrench #3916D Universal Ball Joint Separator fits perfectly around the gear shift shaft universal joints making their removal easy. Also, removing the drivers seat makes changing the master cylinder easier as well. Putting a pillow down over the seat support cross bar helps minimize some of the back pain! Art
You're obviously someone who's worked on the more difficult jobs on a Bora so I'm sure your comments are quite welcomed here. I suspect that Claus was either concerned about about a nonexistent problem with having a larger access panel on that side or he was trying to keep the panel hidden by the seat. There's no problem making convex covers out of aluminum and I'm no terribly accomplished metal fabricator. The poorly constructed sliding door for that cabinet was not an issue for my modification either. Having swapped out the OEM thermal reactors for headers before having these panels in place was enough motivation for me. The fiberglass work was the messiest part of the mod. Subsequent to this i ended up dropping the entire sub frame and refurbishing the entire engine compartment. At that time I painted everything with Imron semigloss black, much was lightly painted or raw metal covered with ordinary period undercoating. When I asked Ing. Guilio Alfieri during his visit to Concourso Italiano in Monterey that year about why they would do such a sloppy manufacturing job on such an expensive and exotic car he responded "Well we never expected these cars to still be around this long. After 4 years we expected that you would buy the latest model." LOL He was truly astonished to see so many of his creations there looking so good, especially later at Laguna Seca. I covered the engine bulkhead black rubberized tool dip. Today I would utilize spray rubberized truck bed liner as it's resistant to petroleum products, the tool dip was not.
