1969 Maserati Ghibli - The Resurection

[Chad speed]

Having uncovered the horror that was the off-side front wing, I continued stripping paint and filler. The rear valance was perforated to the point of disintegration due in no small part to a leaking boot gutter.

Valance rust chopped out


View from the off-side showing previous lower wing/arch repair

The structural part of the car at least was as sound as a pound - thankfully

Spot that original Bossco Verdi paint

[Chad speed]

sanjay123 said:

Hi Chadspeed,

I think I may know one of the previous owners he is still a collector/dealer based in the Midlands, I bump into him in the pub occasionally when I do next time I'll see if he remembers the car.

Good luck with the restoration.


Regards

Sanjay

Thanks Sanjay that would be fantastic.
Would it be one of the following previous owners - Keith Alan, John Britton, Olton Business Services, Andreas Ove Ugland, John Bernard Ugland, or someone else? (PM me if you prefer)
Any info, good or bad would be most welcome
Chadspeed

[Chad speed]

Lost soul said:

The term "Can of worms " comes to mind

Indeed, I like a challenge!
Care to post something on your projects?

[Chad speed]

Lost soul said:

Chad speed said:

Lost soul said:

The term "Can of worms " comes to mind

Indeed, I like a challenge!
Care to post something on your projects?

I was not having a go old fruit i was just making a comment on the scale of your task , ok

Oooops, took it the wrong way - apologies.
The scale of the task has indeed seemed mountainous at times (just over 9 years so far) but I am beginning to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, hope its not an on-coming train!
More photo's of ferrous oxide to come.

[Chad speed]

Bit short of time to do the wordy thing so I'll let the pictures tell most of the story.

Sick of lying on my back and scraping underseal, a more civilised solution was called for:

[Chad speed]

Apologies for the tardy posting, life's been a bit busy of late but in a good way - every spare minute I've been flat out on the car. It gets you that way some time.
Anyway a quick update from the last photo's.

Exploration into the near side inner sill.


Previous repair on the rear offside lower arch

The near side rear arch was as bad as the off side so the offensive previous repair was chopped out along with the lower front portion of the wing and the outer sill.


How many more pictures of rust do you guys want?
This was also the largest area of original paint on the car - you like?

[Chad speed]

Huntsman said:

Yeah, love it.

Keep the pics coming, it makes me feel better about buying a fibreglass car!

I know what you mean about GRP cars, I've had Reliant Sabre and Scimitar, Berkeley B95 and B105, Lotus Elite 501 and TVR Griffith and Tuscan.
Gordon Keeble lovely

[Chad speed]

Ok, you asked for it


Nearside front wheel arch, rusted to bits and cut out.

Note remains of original lead filling.

[Chad speed]

Astacus said:

Have you ever considered sending the car to Surface Processing in Dudley to get the shell treated?

Yes but too many issues - watch this space.

Edited by Chad speed on Sunday 24th June 21:45

[Chad speed]

McClure said:

How's it going Chad?

Hi McClure
Thanks for the bump, progress is slow at the moment as the current task requires fair weather and we haven't had much of that. Remiss of me not posting sooner though, the photo's so far show progress up to about 2007 so I'll get my act together.
Chad

[Chad speed]

Stripping the body of paint and filler had revealed corrosion and past bodges so extensive that I really had no option but to send the shell away for professional surface treatment. I’ll cover this soon but whilst the body was away I tackled the doors.
I knew all was not well when I removed them from the shell, admittedly they still had the glass and all other attachments but I could hardly lift them. I recon the must have weighed about 50kg each! Removing the trim, glass, locks, lift mechanism and motors still didn’t reduce the weight as much as I thought so I attacked the outer skin with the grinder and wire twill brush. Both doors had previous repairs consisting of brazed in lower repair sections beaten back (hammer blows clearly visible) and filler upto an inch thick plastered over the whole door.

Previous brazed repair section and an inch of filler


I decided to make new door skins so removed the old ones and set the frames to one side (they would also need a lot of work as well). At first glance the skins looked quite simple but in true Maserati fashion they are slightly convex along the waist line crease by about 10mm. After a bit of head scratching I made a steel former to form the curved crease over, it meant drilling holes through the skin that would require welding up later on but that was simple enough.

Door skin bolted into steel former and dressed over, you can just see the curve.


Wooden formers were made from the door frames to get the curves and creases in the right place. It all worked our pretty well, the only hitch was as I removed the skin from the steel former they sprung back a little, undetectable to the eye and even difficult to spot with a 1 metre straight edge so I settled for it. Its one of those things, no one else will see it but I know its not quite spot on.

Wooden formers make sure curves and creases are in the right place.


Finished door skin made from 0.9mm Zintec steel and phosphoric acid/zinc phosphate washed.


New and old


Door skin fitted to repaired frame, note replaced frame sections. The frame repair took as long as making and fitting the skins.

[Chad speed]

lamjon said:

Nice to see someone's looking after my old girl, had l seen martin's advert l would have bought her back....
John Britton

Hello John, what a great surprise to hear from a past custodian of Ghibli AM115/992. If you've read the thread from the start you'll see your 'old girl' is doing her best to become an Italian Diva once more and demanding equal doses of attention and patience in a quite unreasonable way - you'd expect nothing less of a lady of such class!
Any past information you have on the car, no matter how small, would be great. For instance was she still green when you bought her? I'm still undecided on paint colour and a photo could tip the balance. The mileage on the car now is 47k could that be correct?
I'll mail you, very nice to meet if only virtually.

Roger - Chadspeed

PS I must thank fellow PH'er Sanjay for making contact possible - Top Bloke

[Chad speed]

With the body stripped of paint and filler and with all visible rust cut out I had already made the decision to have the shell surface treated. A number of services are available but all employ either chemical stripping or mechanical abrasion, so which one to choose?
After much research this is the way I saw it:
Chemicals get to inaccessible places but can also get trapped in those same places potentially causing problems later on. I have seen first hand brown residue seeping out of chassis welds 2 years after treatment.
Blasting meanwhile can cause distortion, doesn’t remove underseal, and may not get to hidden places but it has no long term issues.
Choosing the ‘right’ company is also essential; a friend’s Ghibli came back from a well known classic car chemical treatment company with a dent in both the rear and the front that necessitated removal of the nose cone for repair. I’ve also heard of another stripping company sending the shell elsewhere for post dip anti corrosion coating and the time between strip and coating was over a week.
So, weighing up the pro’s and con’s I opted for blasting at http://www.blast-cleaning.co.uk/index.php?menuid=5... which by good luck is only 10 miles away. The risk of distortion is minimized by using low pressure, high flow air to propel abrasive garnet media through a 1” nozzle (in contrast to conventional blasting that uses high pressure). The process is so controllable that paint can be removed from aluminum and even GRP bodywork layer by layer, a Lotus Elite monocoque was being stripped at the same time as the Ghibli. A phosphate acid etch/primer is applied immediately after stripping which will hold the surface in the stripped state for up to 6 months in a normal dry-ish garage.



Note the pale grey areas are lead loading, most of it factory applied but some clearly from past work.

At about £1k for stripping and treating the shell, bonnet, boot, doors and headlight pods it wasn’t cheap but I was well pleased with the result and it was so much better that what could be achieved at home.

[Chad speed]

With the body back from the surface treatment process I could see where there had been rust it had more or less completely eaten through the steel, and where there had been little or no rust the body was perfect. This leads me to think that most of the corrosion was caused by lack of paint application at the factory on internal panels; the chassis by contrast was perfect.
Blasting had also revealed many areas of the body that would need more attention than I was expecting – should have know better really.
The front valance had taken a few knocks over the years and been repaired a few times as well. It was so rough that replacement was the only realistic option. My sheet metal working skills were rapidly brought back up to speed and it took a few attempts to get right.

Original valance cut out showing previous repairs.


Nose with valance removed


First attempt, hammer formed and planished single piece centre section eventually scrapped in favour of three piece fabrication


New and old valance


Valance clamped in place for welding


New valance in place (the white staining is phosphoric acid wash used to keep the tin worm away)

[Chad speed]

Thanks for the encouragement guys it's been needed over the last few months, finalising the bodywork is dragging on but more on that later

williamp said:

fantastic. And how do you keep the garage so tidy??

I had a look back at the photo's I've posted and most show the garage in the worst state it ever gets. I cant work in a mess it just doesn't work for me, I hate being held up on a job whilst finding the right tool under a pile of bits.

Baron Greenback said:

Take my hat off for your expertise and hopefully a drop dead gorgeous car in the end! Question how long and where you got your metal work experience from? Can't wait to see more!

I'am a Mechanical Engineer (IEng) but haven't been hands on since the second year of a Technicians apprenticeship at Silentbloc over 30 years ago, it included tool-room machining of rubber injection moulds and press tools but no sheet metalwork or welding. I then went on to design and draught those very moulds and press tools and that was the last of the workshop stuff. I then moved through Water Treatment, Industrial Gases, Power Station and now Pharma, Gases and MOD. So I'am essentially self taught, employing the read up on it and give it a go approach, like with most things prepare for a few failures and you get there in the end. Some of the techniques I use may not be the most conventional or fastest but it's how I've taught myself and it works for me.
The level of interest has indeed spurred me on, thanks to all.

[Chad speed]

Whilst making the new front valance, repairs to the nose were also tackled. The nose is supported by a ½” box section frame that butts up to the inside of the nose panel and wings either side of the headlamp pods. Moisture appears to have sat between the frame and the back of the panels and rusted through over time, additionally there were brazed repairs (as seen elsewhere) to the nose and just behind the headlights. Cutting, fabricating and welding in the new sections was pretty straight forward, except where the metal had thinned. What was not so straightforward was my first go at lead loading which is definitely an acquired art, especially on vertical panels.


Previous repair behind headlight cut out with corners of wing and nose in the process of being cut.


Old brazed repair on nose, also see the amount of original lead loading around the headlights.


Rotten inner box section and panel cut out.


Part way through the repair.


Repair welded in.


Repair after lead loading.

[Chad speed]

GTSJOE said:

Really enjoying the thread , you are doing an incredible job at bring one of the all time great cars back to the condition it deserves to be in . As you point out in a previous thread , ghibli's are not seen in the same light as the Muira or the Daytona but in their day they outsold both of them. The ghibli had loads more torque than the Daytona and was a better handling car than the Muira. I read a report that said the ghibli pulled a higher G-force around a race track than the Daytona , just going to prove that it had better road holding than it's rivals.

I have recently bought a Ghibli from the U.S , a 1970 european spec car , will be undertaking the restoration project as soon as it arrives back in the country. Will keep you posted.

Great news Joe, that will be 4 Ghibli undergoing restoration in the south east, we could start a club. It would be great to think we could have all of them together at an event some time, can we have a picture please.
Been a bit busy lately but will try and post further pictures this weekend.

[Chad speed]

JMC1 said:

The Beverly Hills web site is very interesting which I have not seen before.

What do you Maserati experts make of the raty 1971 4.9SS they have for sale (see link). It looks a mess but anything can be restored at a price.

http://www.beverlyhillscarclub.com/1971-maserati-g...

Does the $34,750 (£22,000) asking price make sense for the amount of work that the car needs or would it become an expensive donor car.

I know that it is a 4.9 which has some premium but I thought it seemed expensive.

I did notice that the wheels at least look very nice.

Unless the buyer of that car is able and prepared to do most or all of the work himself I think it could be a financial disaster. In the September 2007 edition of Classic Cars magazine Any Heywood (Bill McGrath Maserati Guru) is quoted as saying " Avoid money pits. A full restoration could cost more than a £100,00", sadly I think this car falls into that category.

As for the desirability of the 4.9SS over the 4.7, my view is there is very little in it. I could be bias of course but the 4.7's were generally the earlier cars with a lot of delicate features which were changed as the car aged resulting in some less pleasing details. To my mind the only real value increasing option was power steering. Ivans excellent guide explains it a bit more:
http://thecarnut.com/Manuals/Ghibli_Features_Optio...

[Chad speed]

neutral 3 said:

Re Power steering , I well remember my late Dad saying that the steering was heavy on AM 115 100 , he used his one a lot around Londons West End ( 1973-75 ) so ime guessing that's where it was hard work. At speed though I would guess the non power steering Ghibli is the better car ?

The guy who bought her new had another earlier car, perhaps he didn't like PAS !

Your comments on power steering are interesting, contemporary reports thought the non PAS cars had heavy steering at low speed but good feel at anything above moderate speeds. The PAS cars were reported to be good at all speeds but I have never seen a comparison of the two. Its worth noting that while both systems use steering boxes the PAS was not merely a modification to the standard set-up. The non PAS car used a Burman box (I think) whilst the PAS car had a complete ZF set up and had the alternator moved to allow space for the PAS pump drive. Second hand PAS components do occasionally come up for sale but a complete system seems to be valued at over £6k! add to that rebuilding components and fitting its not to be undertaken lightly.
I have been toying with the idea of retro fitting an adjustable electrically assisted PAS unit as I think it could be completely hidden from view, however the lady of the house commented it would just be nice to get the car on the road!

[Chad speed]

900T-R said:

Electric power steering available off the shelf (including TüV if required):

http://www.ezpowersteering.nl/type/7/95/Maserati_G...

Thanks for that Eric, not come across that before. I can only find one picture of the system fitted to a similar Maserati, a Mexico. Seems they insert the unit between the steering wheel and bulkhead meaning the nice cast aluminium column housing has to be modified. I was thinking of installing it in the engine bay where only the column shaft needs modification, or replacement. Interesting though, wonder if they do kits or supply and install only, very little technical or pricing info on the website.