[DeTomaso] Trailering Tiedown Points

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/14/07 15:18:33, peter-kovacs at sbcglobal.net writes:

<< No offense taken Matt. You both went in to more detail than I did and 
brought up important points. I used to run the straps over the A arms until I was 
advised by Pantera people at the Las Vegas event that I was possibly impacting 
my alignment when cinching down the car. Is that a valid concern? >>

>>>I have seen A-arms bent by well-intentioned trailer-types, most notably in 
the rear.  The front ones seem stronger.  Running the strap through the wheel 
in the front seems to be a great technique, and in the back I would 
definitely run the strap through some part of the chassis rather than the A-arm.  
Contrary to what Matt suggested, it's not difficult to run the rear straps around 
the rearmost cross-piece of the chassis (to which the center sway bar mounts 
are affixed).

Finally, in the most extreme case, I have seen a Pantera chassis (Ellis 
Woumnm's) literally broken by an overzealous tow truck driver.  He cranked down 
super-hard on the straps, then took the car on a very bumpy drive.  The chassis 
cracked just forward of the footboxes, and he had to weld it back together at a 
PCNC tech session.

Larry Stock recently discovered that his chassis was broken there too, and 
the only thing holding the car together was his chassis stiffening kit!!!!

Mike

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