[DeTomaso] Trailering Tiedown Points

Matt Merritt mmerritt at eventvehicles.com
Thu Mar 15 11:30:34 EDT 2007


Hi Mike and All:

I'm no engineer but my basic understanding of leverage makes me think that
attaching tiedown straps to the wheels would put more stress on the
suspension (but probably not the unibody) than using the inboard part of the
A-arms.  

I guess that the bottom line is that if you're going to tow your Pantera
often you should fabricate some stout tow loops (not hooks).

MM

-----Original Message-----
From: MikeLDrew at aol.com [mailto:MikeLDrew at aol.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 5:51 PM
To: peter-kovacs at sbcglobal.net; hjbutler at bellsouth.net; Matt Merritt;
detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Trailering Tiedown Points


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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