[DeTomaso] Don't let this happen to you.

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/1/09 17 17 55, tonydigi at optonline.net writes:


> Here's one for the annuls of luck:  Two week ago, I took the Pantera for 
> a spirited Sunday jaunt down the highway 10 miles and back through the 
> surface roads.  As I approach a red light under normal braking, in the last 15 
> feet, I hear a god awful grinding sound.  Something worse than a failed 
> wheel bearing but not as bad as the cluster gear I once broke in a Nova.  When 
> the light turned green, I wasn't sure the car would move, but it pulled 
> thru the intersection just fine and I pulled into a parking lot.  Initial 
> visual turned up nothing obvious, but then I noticed my right rear brake 
> caliper fell off.  It fell off. O-F-F It fell off!  It was still there, and 
> connected, with no brake line damage.  Even the mounting bolts and washers were 
> still there, but there was no denying it fell off.  I got one bolt in by 
> hand and drove home 5 miles idling in 1st gear.
> 
>>>Lucky boy!   When I bought my Pantera and drove it home from Hall 
Pantera, when I got home I noticed a grinding noise from the rear.   One of the 
bolts holding one rear caliper in place had backed off and disappeared, and 
the caliper came to rest on the edge of the rotor, which was acting like a 
circular saw and slowly cutting it in half. :<(

Fortunately all I had to do was stick a new bolt in there, and tighten the 
other one.   The ones on the other side of the car were tight, but the 
bolt-holding-doohicky was missing from the offending side for some reason.
> 
> >Diagnosis:  One caliper mounting bolt backed out.  Once clear of carrying 
> any shear load, the braking force on the one remaining bolt was enough to 
> break it.  The bolts were stainless socket headed cap screws provided in 
> the aftermarket caliper conversion kit I bought two years ago.  They are now 
> all carbon steel socket-headed cap screws and have loctite on them.  All 
> the bolts on the other 3 corners were still tight.
> 
>>>Good call switching to carbon steel.   Stainless has lots of bling, but 
I certainly wouldn't want to use it in my braking system, based on my 
rudimentary understanding of the strength of SS bolts vs Grade 5 and Grade 8 steel 
(and metric equivalents).
> 
> >In a related story, I found the 5/16 hex drive socket I lost two years 
> ago.  How does that happen:  A torqued bolt you want to stay in, comes out, 
> while a hex drive you accidentally leave behind stays put during the same 
> two years?
> 
>>>Where had it been this whole time?
> 
> Could have been a whole, big bad, bunch worse.
> 
>>>Indeed!   A fellow jettisoned his rear caliper on the way to Reno this 
year, and it got tangled up in the wheel, mangling the wheel and the caliper. 
  Big bummer for him, although he had the car hauled to Larry Stock's shop 
and they fixed it.

Mike





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