Ouch. Think my clutch has just gone.

[2b1ask1]

Pick mine (old one) up at auction soon for peanuts; don't try running it as they have crushed the hydraulic cooler underneath bouncing it on the forks! Otherwise should make a good donor...

 

[GeoffCapes]

Ouch, I feel your pain been there and done that. I had discussion with Emblem last year when they said that prior to mine in 2014 they had only done 2 actuators but in 2015 they did 5 and a further 3 last year mostly on the earlier cars. They seem to feel that regardless of mileage the units just seem to have got to an age where failure become more apparent.

There was a waiting list for secondhand units because new ones are so expensive, over £2k for the part only although Eurospares did mine for £1.8k. You could look to see if any of the normal breakers have one, Greg or Dave you might be lucky they normally are about a grand cheaper.

The actuator on mine is fine. It's the valve body.
I have subsequently found that you can buy the valve body from Eurospares for £1500.

So that may be an option.

 

[conaero]

...or speak to voicey, he has several old actuators and can rob the valve body off it before he skips it!

Try David Askew or Soprano Stu for a used one?

 

[GeoffCapes]

...or speak to voicey, he has several old actuators and can rob the valve body off it before he skips it!

Try David Askew or Soprano Stu for a used one?

I spoke to Voicey this afternoon, he put me onto the Eurospares valve body and said you can buy the valve individually, so there's a few options open to me.

 

[Spartacus]

Ouch . Iv just got a list of jobs to do on mine from F Tech as well as the clutch . But i might aswell get it all done while its there .

 

[zagatoes30]

Ouch . Iv just got a list of jobs to do on mine from F Tech as well as the clutch . But i might aswell get it all done while its there .

Maserati logic but probably the right way of thinking

 

[D Walker]

Think I am nearly convinced to get a German barge!!

 

[philw696]

To be fair Dave the German stuff ain't as good as it used to be from what I'm seeing down here.
Brakes wear out quickly and expensive unless you want Chinese rubbish and oil leaks make the Italians look good.
Plus they are Boring.

 

[Contigo]

Think I am nearly convinced to get a German barge!!

And blend in with the rest of the non-descripts!

Factor in £3k a year I say for a Maser and more and it's a bad year and any less it's a bonus!

 

[GeoffCapes]

Think I am nearly convinced to get a German barge!!

I've got an E Class barge for work. Yes, it's fast, comfy, got all the toys, does everything well.
Is it exciting. Not a chance.

It's a good reliable work car.

If you don't need one for work where you do loads of miles I'd see no reason to buy one.

 

[Gp79]

Well worth a second opinion when that kind of doe is involved.

Voicy did already do some testing?

 

[voicey]

I didn't do any testing - I simply let Matthew use my SD3 (and peered over his shoulder). One thing I'd like to make clear it that I'm not in the business of second guessing people - if Mathew says there's a problem with the power unit then we should trust his diagnosis. He's very experienced with these cars and has the benefit of actually spending time with the car trying to solve the problem.

If it is the power unit that is fault then there can only be a number of things to go wrong with it. The unit itself is a cast metal enclosure with a number of valves and sensors fitted to it (along with fittings for the hoses). Usually one or more of the EV valves goes bad - if it is the valve then certainly a few weeks ago you could buy them on their own as I bought some for a QP.

I carry a few known good valves to aid with diagnosis - there are only two types (although six valves in total) and I have offered to loan out a valve or two if it would help with the diagnosis.

 

[Kyle4200]

Voicey,

I have a spare few weekends coming up so I'm still in the process of fault finding with my F1 issues. As it stands - the car starts fine, the pump primes normally, but once in (N) it's coming on/off every 8-9 seconds, my first thought is either a dodgy accumulator, leaking clutch solenoid valve or the old air in the system. My next port of call would be to get the actuator off and have a look at these 3 bleed screws, but i did have the same problem before on my drive, the car would not go into gear and then once it was finally in (1) or (R) gear it would bite too soon, as if the clutch couldn't stay open. When this happened I switched of the engine as it wasn't going back into (N). I then fully charged the battery, bled both the clutch line and power unit multiple times and then drove it - perfect. Once back home I thought I'll bleed it once more (no actual reason), I opened the bypass screw (first time at doing this) and then... it all went all pear shaped again, maybe it was just by luck the first time it drove fine but me having another go at it caused it to turn bad again, I only replaced the burst EV5 pipe (before this the car ran fine), where could I possibly buy a clutch valve for the power unit as I've seen on eurospares it comes with the other valves.

Kyle

 

[voicey]

In answer to your question about where you can buy a clutch valve, eurospares or a main dealer. I don't know why you can't see it on the ES website as it appears fine for me. Perhaps you are confusing the description of "Valve kit". Note the quantity fitted - they are sold singly.

However, I wouldn't replace the valve without some kind of confirmation that it is faulty. I also don't know what you are going to achieve by looking at the bleed screws on the back of the actuator. They work by allowing air/fluid to run out of the actuator and back to the tank via the low pressure rubber hose. However in order to do this you need to command EV1/2/3/4/5 to open in sequence and for that you need diagnostics.

In my opinion, you need to have the actuator bled up properly with an SD or similar. From there a proper diagnosis needs to be done to see what issues you have. Anything else is going to be an expensive stab in the dark.

 

[Wack61]

Kyle , what I would do in your situation is transport your car to voicey's and let him fix it , owning a maserati can have you waking up in the night sweating when it goes wrong but sometimes you have to admit defeat, realise there is no diy fix and call in the experts one of which voicey is with bells on.

Please do it before something very expensive goes pop.

 

[Contigo]

That's the issue with the later Masers you need a computer to fix them. 3200 were the last where pretty much all components could be changed without any resetting or recal using SD2/3.

 

[voicey]

I'm not touting for new business (quite the opposite right now) and there are specialists much closer to Southampton than me that can do the job just as well. I'm not here to drum up new business but because I love the Ferrari/Maserati brands and want to help people have the best possible ownership experience.

Also, I'm not against DIY - far from it, just check out my website that shows you how to do a lot of things (on a Ferrari). However there are jobs that cannot be done without diagnostics and sadly that includes most operations on the F1 system.

Even on older tipos, like the 3200, you need diagnostics to track down issues with systems like airbags or suspension.

In this case I think Kyle would be better off spending money on someone (not me!) to diagnose his car with an SD2/3 as opposed to speculating on a new clutch valve.

 

[rs48635]

All of this brilliant discussion only serves to remind me to shut the four doors on my QP Sport GT. Open the door back to the wonderfully intermittent world of the DIY 3200 GT.

Big breaths and put it up for sale. Thing is i really rather like them both.........

 

[Kyle4200]

My final option will be calling out Mike Roberts with his SD3, but going off his last diagnostic read out prior to the split EV pipe and looking at Voicey's website on the clutch solenoid valve leak rates, it would seem mine was a lot higher than expected. From what I understand of the system itself the symptoms of this would be the F1 pump priming much more frequently (every 8 seconds in my case). I've also spoke to Craig Waterman, he explained that the accumulator can fail and then the system doesn't hold pressure (common with the older cars) and again the pump intervals are more frequent. So it's a more educated guess than simply a stab in the dark, ignoring the actuator completely now - if the engine is on and in (N) the pump is priming excessively when it should be around once every 2 minutes, theory is the clutch struggles to stay open due to 1). Leaking Clutch Valve or 2). Accumulator is failed/failing. thus changing gear with a clutch that's closing too soon proves difficult. Support this when engine on and in (1) with the brake pedal pressed the car wants to move forward.

One last question.
If changing the F1 accumulator and/or pressure switch, how is any trapped air bled from the system after refitting these components?

 

[GeoffCapes]

As an update on my car.

Matthew has now changed the F1 pump, the actuator, the valve body, and now the car doesn't want to start.
It is possible that when the valve body went, it shorted the ECU (apparently this has happened before to other 4200's according to Meridian).

Matthew now needs to get hold of an 03 ECU to try on my car.

My original post of a 3 grand bill for a new clutch now seems like wishful thinking.....