We got together on Friday the 13th to make some more progress. While it feels like we got a few steps forward, we didn’t actually manage to finish anything yet.
Currently, we’re working on three tasks: Complete the timing belt change; catalog the spares and parts in and around the car; empty the fuel tank of the old gas. None of the parts got cataloged, but progress was made on the timing belt and problems were found with the fuel system.
For the timing belt to be removed from the engine, the crank pulley needed to come off and the tensioner needed to be relaxed. Pulling the crank pulley was simple – the five bolts zipped out and the pulley easily slid off.
The service manual, translated from the Italian a couple decades before Google Translate became a thing, says that to remove the “belt stretcher” – by which they mean the timing belt tensioner – you’re supposed to loosen the cap locking bolt, compress the spring to release the tension, tighten the locking bolt, and then remove the tensioner and the “jockey pulley”. I, however, decided to try to remove the tensioner without re-reading the manual and didn’t remember any of that. Instead, I took the mounting bolts out of the tensioner to remove it and then slid the old timing belt off. Either way, the job was complete. Two bits of good news came from this. First of all, the water pump bearing feels smooth and is quiet. Secondly, the tensioner pulley bearing was a disaster!
The tensioner pulley is removed by taking off the snap ring and sliding it over its mounting peg. The corrosion meant that it took considerable effort to remove the pulley, but once it was off, I could disassemble it so the bearing could be replaced.
Using the hydraulic press, I took the old bearing out and pressed the new one in.
Once I figured out how the tensioner actually worked, I lubed that up as well.
Meanwhile, Dave got in there and cleaned up the pulleys. And the cold-side charge pipes.
Again, I failed to remember the specific instructions, so I got the belt on a tooth off. But I’ll fix that later on. In the meantime, Tim was working on draining the fuel. He was thinking that getting the fuel pump to do the work would be easiest, so we hooked up a battery and tried to get the fuel pump to run. Nothing. He tried connecting 12V directly to the fuel pump and still nothing. It looks like a new fuel pump will need to be sourced.
Once we returned from Nevada, the car needed to be delivered to the shop and arranged so we could work on it.
The spare had already been put on the rear to replace a tire that popped and now one of the front tires had also developed a significant hole. The growing number of completely flat tires combined with the mostly flat tires made it a little bit difficult to move around. Tim, Becca, and I were able to coordinate some floor jacks and a come-along to eventually get the Maserati to sit in the “project car spot”, though.
Now that the car was where I wanted it, it was time to begin the work! After careful consideration, we decided that because the cars were so prone to timing belt failure and it is an interference engine, the potential cost plus the risk of the timing belt failing while trying to start the car were both high enough that the first step should be to put a new timing belt on the car. For $114 after shipping and tax, I got a new Dayco timing belt and a bearing for the tensioner.
Greg, Tim, Becca, and I got started by pulling out the radiator, loosening the alternator, and removing the timing cover. Our first observation was that while the timing belt had definitely been replaced at some point judging by the broken-off and missing bolts on the cover, deciding to replace it now was a good choice. While the belt was intact, there were a number of small cracks already developing in it.
With the radiator out of the way, we gave the engine a little more of an inspection and noted that the oil in the crankcase does not appear to have any coolant or water in it and it is completely clean, as though the last thing that happened to this car before it was put up was an oil change. There are no visible holes in the block anywhere, but the vacuum system is a mess with cracked and missing hoses everywhere. There are a couple spots where the vacuum lines have been plugged with bolts. When we disconnected the radiator, we noted that the lower hose had been cut and there was absolutely no coolant anywhere in the system that we could see. We are assuming that the coolant temperature switch that controls the cooling fan has failed as the fan was connected to the alligator clips that were taped to the upper radiator hose.
As we were working we speculated a bit as to what made this a parts car and the theory that we’re working on right now is that it was taken off the road to do regular maintenance and because the fenders were damaged and/or rusty. The car has new fenders welded on, but the body work isn’t complete. That would explain why the whole lights, bumper, and grille assembly is removed since that would need to come off to do the fenders. I suspect that the body work was started and the car was sold as an unfinished project at a price that was cheap enough to make it good to stick in a field as a parts car. Looking at the mileage, it’s just a few hundred miles past the timing belt change:
That’s my theory at least.
According to the service manual, the right cam will stay in place when the engine is a TDC and on the timing marks, but the left cam must be held in place. Naturally there’s a special tool for that, but we don’t have one. So using a bit of leftover steel, I cut out some teeth and put a hold in it to bolt it down to the block. We got as far as testing my cam gear holder by trying to rotate the engine and it seems to work. Next up will be releasing the tensioner – or the “belt stretcher” as the manual calls it – and pulling the crank pulley and the tensioner bearing so that the old belt can be removed and the new one installed.
The tool is imperfect, as evident by the above photo, but it does hold the cam in place. Cutting that out would have been much easier with a loose pulley to use for better measurements and fitment since the transfer from paperboard to steel resulted in the teeth being off a bit as the paperboard was bent a little behind the pulley. Being extremely unlikely that this tool will ever be used a second time, however, it should get this job done and then be returned to the scrap steel pile to find another life once the new timing belt has been installed.
Undertaking a project of this magnitude is not something that I could do alone. My daughter, Becca, is interested in helping but I knew that I also needed some experienced gearheads on our side as well. Enter the crew.
Tim is a long-time friend who introduced me to the Challenge in the first place. When I first started getting an inkling that I might want to tackle this project, he was the first that I drew into my circle of trust.
Greg is a fellow forum participant who lives in the area and works pretty close to my part of town. When he heard there was a secret Challenge project underway, he was in.
David is another fellow participant and Challenge attendee who lives in town. He wasn’t able to join us in person for the reveal, but thanks to the magic of FaceTime, he was with us virtually.
Once the car was back home, I sent a text to our group:
With a hook like that, no one could resist, so we gathered on a rainy Monday evening for me to unveil the car. Becca and Tim already knew what the car was, but neither had seen it yet. Greg and David made their guesses – another Saab was the consensus there – and then Tim and I pulled the cover off to reveal the car. Greg’s response was “when you said it didn’t run, I feel like we probably should have guessed”.
After reminding everyone that there was an absolute media embargo, we started scheming and making plans. Since I have some other projects that need to be taken care of first, the official “start date” of the project was slated for mid September, after Tim and I return from the Silver State Classic Challenge.
Ever since I read an article in Grassroots Motorsports back in 2006 about the Maserati Biturbo, there has been something about it that has called to me. Unlike other cars that I’ve been interested in, though, I cannot really explain what it is about these that draws me in. I don’t particularly care for how they look, I’m not all that interested in Maserati as a manufacturer or Italian cars as a whole, and while the interior is very posh, I don’t really like the Grandma’s-overstuffed-chair look to the seats. They certainly aren’t good cars if reliability is a factor at all in that equation, and by all accounts they aren’t particularly fast or nimble. But like a moth to the flame, I haven’t been able to put it out of my mind.
Over the years, there have been a number of cars at the GRM $2000 Challenge that have been considered white whales. For years, everyone talked about who would be the first person to actually bring a Zamboni. There was the Free Europa. There was the first Corvette. MonZora finally made its appearance. But the Biturbo remained as a car with the mystique of never having appeared at the Challenge with a decent amount of buzz about who would be the first to show up with one. Who could do it?
In 2023, I brought a very stock, very slow 1990 Saab 900 Turbo Convertible to the Challenge. The intent wasn’t to win anything or even impress anyone, all we wanted to do was just be there and what better way to spectate than from the inside? The car was well under the $2,000 budget, so we stuck some GTN$ vinyl on it and headed off. The response that we got there was absolutely unexpected. We didn’t win any awards or anything, but everybody wanted to talk about the Saab and complimented us on the car. That’s when it really sank in to me that it was possible to compete in the party while not being competitive in the event. At that moment, the gears started turning.
My search started off in a pretty wide area. While there were a few running examples out there, the prices were not conducive to a Challenge effort. In Duluth, MN’s craigslist, I found a promising candidate listed for $500, but despite having an amazing story, the title paperwork was likely lost to the sands of time and I really don’t want to be stuck with an albatross. Another was advertised on the Eastern seaboard for about $1,500 but it had been in a fire – surprise of surprises! – so that wasn’t going to work. One popped up in northern Georgia for only $600, but it was gone before I made up my mind to inquire. There was one in Tennessee, however, that was listed for $1,000 as a parts car that was promised to be 99% complete with a pile of spares.
Due to scheduling conflicts, it took a couple weeks before I could make the 4 hour trip to look at it. Early on a July Saturday morning, I picked up my dad, hooked up the trailer, and headed south. The car was pretty much as-advertised. Some rust on the bottoms of the doors and a little bit on the c-pillar, but nothing terminal anywhere. After taking it out of gear, the engine spun freely for a complete rotation and other than the air filter assembly, nothing appeared to be missing from the engine itself. The A/C compressor was long gone and there was another bracket that looked like it could have been for power steering, but I didn’t see any power steering lines hanging loose anywhere. The parts stash wasn’t massive, but there were a decent number of things that looked to be either useful or saleable.
The car belonged to the seller’s son. He had a driver and a second parts car in addition to this one at one time. The other parts car – which was reported to have been absolutely chock-full of even more parts – was stolen out of a side yard. The driver met its end in a conflagration at a gas station. Apparently he was driving the car, pulled over when another motorist pointed out the flames, and the car was fully-involved after that. Since the car was a total loss, he decided he was done with these and the remaining parts car and parts stash were for sale.
After a little bit of a think, I decided that it was worth the gamble, handed over the money, and got started with the winch.
Once the Challenge is over, I have three possible outcomes for the car:
Sell it as a running car for at least what I have in it
Keep it for occasional drives and car shows
Remove the Maserati drivetrain and swap in something else to have a relatively reliable classic to drive around
I fully realize that I am jumping in to this without really looking where I’m going to land. I know that there could be a million different very expensive things wrong with this car. I also know that I could be missing some very vital parts – it was sitting in a field as a parts car, after all. But I’ve decided that this is an adventure that I want to at least make an attempt at. In order to have the most impact, I intend to keep this project as secret as possible so that the first that anyone knows that there will be a Biturbo at the Challenge will be when I roll in to the hotel parking lot on Thursday afternoon with the car on the trailer. The build thread is going to be created in an off-line fashion, as will the video series, with everything uploaded and set to go live on the weekend of the Challenge. So in a way, this is a message from the past, a message in a bottle – probably an olive oil bottle.
