[DeTomaso] Fw: FOR Sale Rant

[Julian Kift]

The Kodiak's on my GT5 fit straight up and have the correct look, no issues. I ordered the same backspacing for the GP4 conversion and I have mounted them to get the flares correct and they looked great too. Like someone said it's not rocket science and if there is any doubt find someone with a factory widebody still wearing the 10" and 13" width Campi's to measure.

 

One word of advice don't mount the flares without the wheels mounted as the flares don't necessarily sit where you'd expect from the fender arch centerline.

 

Julian
 
> From: JDeRyke at aol.com
> Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:25:08 -0400
> To: detomaso at realbig.com
> Subject: Re: [DeTomaso]   Fw:  FOR Sale Rant
> 
> FWIW, I've never heard of anyone successfully buying aftermarket wheels 
> (even those built to order) that simply bolted onto a GR-4, Gr-5 or GT5-S 
> conversion and fit correctly. All of the successful ones started with the wheels 
> and tires IN HAND and went from there- including the vendors who do these 
> conversion commercially. One reason is, the spot-welded Pantera chassis moves 
> around over the years, many cars have been in traffic accidents and 
> inexpertly repaired, and some if not most were actually welded asymetrically in the 
> factory jigs. 
> All this means the suspension mounting lug locations on the left may not 
> perfectly match the right and thus identical wheels will not wind up in the 
> same place relative to the fender edges. One engineer-owner found his 
> unmolested car to have the front crossmember welded in place some 1-1/2" LOWER on 
> one side, causing the entire front body- with its nicely fitting panel joints- 
> to be slightly skewed, and again- factory wheels not well aligned to the 
> fender edges. Regardless of Ford's best efforts, these are hand-built cars!
> Such problems are easily solved during flair mounting if the wheels & tires 
> are at hand, but after-the-fact, spacers, cutting and machining wheels and 
> other antics are often necessary to get a symmetric look. I also remember 
> one owner that took quite a while to do his all-metal GR-4 conversion, and by 
> then, the tires he'd planned to use and had based his calciulations on were 
> no longer available.... Good luck doing things the other way around- J 
> Deryke
> _______________________________________________
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