If your Maserati has a large brass cylinder, usually painted dull
orange, hanging from the right lower side of its in-line six engine
or from the lower front of an early V-8 engine, the following should
be of interest to you. The above mentioned cylinder is a water to
oil heat exchanger and also serves as an oil filter housing. You
will notice a large diameter hose running from the radiator to the
heat exchanger and another one from the heat exchanger to the water
pump.
If your Maserati has a large brass cylinder, usually painted dull
orange, hanging from the right lower side of its in-line six engine
or from the lower front of an early V-8 engine, the following should
be of interest to you. The above mentioned cylinder is a water to
oil heat exchanger and also serves as an oil filter housing. You
will notice a large diameter hose running from the radiator to the
heat exchanger and another one from the heat exchanger to the water
pump.
Several problems present themselves to the owner. Just like a
radiator, the heat exchanger has a large number of thin tubes
through which the engine coolant must flow and like a radiator,
these tubes can become clogged with calcium deposits, lumps of old
gasket sealer, etc. This condition will of course cause the engine
to overheat due to coolant flow restriction. If your Maserati is
running hot, having the radiator and heat exchanger -flow checked by
a radiator expert may give you the reason. Never put anything but
distilled water and quality antifreeze in your Maserati's cooling
system by the way.
The other main problems that can be encountered lie with the oil
filtering part of the system. A paper element is employed rather
than the more convenient and less messy spin-on filter used on later
cars. Although, under normal circumstances, there is no chance of
being doused with coolant when replacing the oil filter element
since oil and coolant are not mixed together, it can still be a
daunting task to avoid the inevitable gush of oil when removing the
paper element, installing a new element, keeping the element back-up
washers, seals and spring in the correct order, getting the center
bolt started without cross threading it and making sure the upper
and lower canister seal rings are located properly while several
pounds of brass full of engine coolant dangle by 2 pieces of
radiator hose.
A word of caution here, and this applies to all cars with
canister type filters with replaceable elements. Many well meaning
back yard mechanics, like the proverbial baby and the bath water,
have caused great damage to their cars' engines by inadvertently
throwing out the important filter back-up washers, seal ring and
spring along with the old filter element. Without something to seal
the ends of the filter element the dirty oil just bypasses the
filter and carries the same dirt and metal particles around and
around the engine doing wonders for all those close tolerances.
Before installing a new filter, check to make sure all the proper
parts are there and in the correct order.
The following is one solution to the above mentioned problems. Go
to your local N.A.P.A. auto parts store and ask for Part # 1-7519
which is a sandwich plate to be installed between a spin-on oil
filter and a Chevy V-8 engine. Also ask for an A.C. oil filter, part
# PF-932, Fram # PH 373 or N.A.P.A. # 1794. In other words, a large
capacity, 2 Quart, spin-on oil filter for a 1975 Chevy small block
V-8 engine.
The above mentioned sandwich plate will have 2 threaded holes in
it, (1/2" pipe thread), so that you can route the oil to an
auxiliary oil cooler.
The drawings below depict the pieces we machined to adapt the
Chevy oil filter sandwich plate to the Maserati filter mount. Not
shown, due to variations in the plumbing of various models, is the
by-pass tube which must be installed in the coolant circuit if the
heat exchanger is removed from the car. Also shown is a factory
illustration of the parts that make up the oil filter/heat exchanger
assembly, some of which are very often missing from behind the
original style oil filter element.
The beauty of the spin-on filter conversion, besides all the
potential problems it eliminates, is that no original Maserati parts
are modified or destroyed so that all of the removed pieces can
remain with the car for any possible concours restoration work in
the future. The heat taken away by the new oil cooler doesn't hurt
the engine either and an oil thermostat is also easily installed
into the cooler lines.
EXPLODED VIEW OF HEAT EXCHANGER/OIL FILTER ASSEMBLY NOTE: This
drawing happens to be from the Ghibli parts manual and is correct.
The parts are depicted in the wrong order in some factory
illustrations.
(#60) Oil filter cartridge(s). (#61) Filter cartridge back-up
washer. (#62) Cartridge to center bolt Rubber 0 ring seal. (#63)
Upper spring perch. (#64) Spring. (#65) Rubber 0 ring end seal.
(#66) Bottom cover plate. (#67) Center bolt rubber 0 ring end seal.
(#68) Center bolt. (#69) Heat exchanger/oil filter canister. (#55)
Rubber 0 ring end seal. (#52) Oil filter housing.
