[DeTomaso] Pantera near disaster

[boyd casey]

Dave and Julian,
Both of you gave excellent advice and made relevant points.
Since  I have been thinking about this and working on it since Thursday
(when it happened) I have had the opportunity to give it allot of thought
and I have already implemented most if not all of your suggestions.

   1. I wrote to the wheel manufacturer and asked what type of lug nuts I
   should be using (conical tapered 60 degree?, Ball radius, Flat, if flat with
   washers and what size?
   2. Are my wheels hub centric? If not is there an adapter made to make
   them hub centric?
   3. Does the wheel mounting surface require any prep before mounting? ( I
   had read some where that some wheels require a silicon application to the
   mounting surface 24 hours before being mounted)
   4. I asked them for the recommended torque specs.
   5. I asked  German Auto/ SACO to include the specs of the studs with the
   new hubs, and to include the recommended lug nuts and thread engagement
   required. (I don't think they  stock because they are part of this custom
   fabrication but I am not assuming anything from this point on)
   6. I asked German for *Their torque specs in case there is a
difference*between the wheel mfg specs and the hub riser mfg specs.

Since I will be reassembling my car at home this time and not 45 miles away
from home ( it is actually allot more significant then 45 miles. My car club
and the alignment shop are in Port Chester NY and I am on long Island. . So
we are separated by the Long Island sound. It may as well be 300 miles away
. The area is virtually unknown to me. When I get my car back together I
will be able to road test it in my neck of the woods and I have a shop that
does work on exotics (they also charge exotic prices) They used to do the
work on my 911 ( they do all the high end sports cars for the Dr.'s from the
local hospital) I will bring the car to them and have them check everything
out. The alignment did not do a tire run out which I think might have
spotted what ever anomaly caused this catastrophic failure. In any event I
am going to do everything I can to make sure that every nut and bolt are
torqued to spec and that everything else checks out before this car travels
more then a mile and  be sure that every thing is double checked by a
qualified mechanic before this car goes over 15 mph! I will follow the old
"Fool me once" adage as guidance. Thanks again to both of you for your well
thought out advice.
Boyd

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Julian Kift <julian_kift at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> This is good advice; I know you think you have arrived at a root cause and
> you have a lot of faith in the parts supplied, but some due diligence in
> double checking at this point may ultimately save your life.
>
> I assume with the aftermarket set up you have outboard hats, so ensuring
> proper stud engagement in the axle and that the hat sits properly with no
> flaot etc. is all paramount. I have seen studs that have incorrect shoulder
> length and (as David says) don't allow correect seating of hat and/or wheel.
> Also they need pulling through the axle and seating correctly on
> installation. Stud thread length is another good one as vendors are selling
> at least three types; stock, GT5 and Nascar all of which are different
> thread lengths and may or may not work depending on the thickness of your
> wheel center.
>
> Your cat may have nine lives, you however only have one..... Many a time
> it's not just a question of the integrity of the parts supplied, it's the
> combination of those parts with your exisitng or different sourced ones.
>
> Julian
>
> > From: dnunn at telus.net
> > To: detomaso at realbig.com
> > Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:08:57 -0700
> > Subject: [DeTomaso] Pantera near disaster
> >
> > Boyd,
> >
> >
> >
> > Check the following fundamental items:
> >
> >
> >
> > Does your rear hub conversion use OE wheel studs or aftermarket studs? If
> > OE, are the splines fully engaged and a proper press fit into the axles?
> If
> > not, you may not be able to tighten your lug nuts at all. As an example,
> > when using Wilwood brake hats, OE studs need to have a shim placed
> between
> > the hat and the head of the stud or it pushes too far through axle and
> the
> > splines don't engage properly. Are the studs too long for your lug nuts,
> so
> > the nuts can't tighten properly ? The Tire Rack web site has a section on
> > minimum thread engagement requirements and appropriate torque settings.
> Did
> > you only use an impact gun to tighten your lug nuts or did you do the
> final
> > tightening with a torque wrench? Are your wheels properly hubcentric? Are
> > you using lug nuts that match the lug nut seats in your wheels?
> >
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