The Bridge Classic Cars team are a tight knit crew, with all of us happy and willing to help out should one of us need them. The latest news from the 1987 Maserati BiTurbo joins our technician Jon helping out our new restoration technician Will to get the BiTurbo project moving head.
Will:
‘Go round checking any electrical connections and a general check over of the engine bay so it can run, find that it does not spin over by hand when a ratchet is on the crank bolt, after speaking with supervisor I removed the spark plugs so it had less compression and tried again, after car found not to spin over move car onto the lift to to further diagnose, felt very notchey when turned over on the flywheel with a pry bar, so needed starter motor removed, remove throttle and choke cable, remove air box and hoses, remove inet manifold and plenum chamber, remove water from the car into a clean drain tray.‘
‘Remove water hoses from top on the engine to access starter motor, remove starter motor, measure clearance from starter motor gear in resting position to flywheel to see how much clearance there is, bench test the starter motor, find that starter motor is spinning over when just power is fed to the solenoid, put the dti on the flywheel to see if there is much runnout (0.56mm), clean up the car and the Spilt water, put al parts away, put plugs in the open inlet ports, clean the parts coming off the car (air box, plenum chamber, starter motor), decide with Jon to have a 1mm space made and to have the starter motor reconditioned, tidy up all tools and anything else on the car’
‘Replace fuel pump wire so it works and test, check through all lights, find front right hand side light not working, drill out broken plastic screw in the light housing replace bulb, check the light is getting feed to it with a volt metre, remove washer fluid bottle and engine to undo front bumper.’
‘Remove all bolts holding on the front bumper and remove the side indicators and trim, wiggle front bumper forward to gain access to bolts holding in the side light and indicator unit, remove side light and indicator unit, dismantle the side light and indicator unit, find that is want getting continuity because of corrosion on the terminals, clean up all three terminals on the wire wheel, repaired broken earth terminal by using solder to rejoin the two snapped pieces, rebuild light unit, check for continuity and find there was none, ot being able to repair the unit so a new one was ordered.
Jon:
‘Help will with testing new starter motor for clearance when fitted. Turn over by hand and check flywheel clears. All OK. Connect up and check turns over NY starter. Sound so much better and clears ok. Recheck again by hand and seems good. Align timing. Remove and refit distributor and cap. Trim starter label and secure. Refit rubber boot. Connect coolant pipes to oth heads.
Vacuume test water system for leaks, PTFE tape drain bung on radiator as it was leaking, remove air box and hoses diagnosing another leak from a missing jubilee clip and fit clip, fill car with coolant, clean up the points contacts and thr rotor arm and contacts in the distributor cap, 10 litres of fuel in the car, check if fuel is gettng to the carburettor.
After finding that fuel isn’t getting to the carburettor, check relay and fuses for fuel pump, check that the fuel pump is getting electrical feed, find that it has a lose earth connection to the fuel pump, check if fuel is getting to carburettor after this and find that it isn’t, find that the fuel lines into the fuel regulator is plumbed up in the wrong order, re plumb fuel lines in the right orders, tidy and clean up the car after, check that the car has spark and the leads are in the correct order.’