[DeTomaso] A-arm connections

[Dan Courtney]

Hey Bill,
Yes, I sure do have the SBC, and it was running like a vampire out of hell 
until the axle broke.
I picked up a pair of Dennis Quella's uprights, with the zerk fittings, etc, 
along with rifle drilled forged axels, new Willwood calipers, rotors, 
balljoints, fat bearings, etc.$ etc.
I can't recall this VIN but I think it's real close to yours, very low 
number. 13 something.
It has 1/4" steel plates cut and welded along the frame support, below the 
rear a-arm upper mounts, all the way down to the bottom, where it connects 
to the lower frame rail. I'm not sure if this was the factory recall fix or 
if there were installed by the race car prep company, when they put The 
Beast on a rotissere to beef up the chassis about 5 years ago. The steel 
looks fairly new.
The stock welds were junk, a ton of pitting and contamination. We are having 
to grind them 1/2 off..Three of them were completey cracked, top to bottom.
Smitty, the master welder going over this, says it looks like there was not 
enough of a "shield "during the factory welding, which allowed oxygen to 
enter and burn the welded metal. I think he said Guido didn't use enough 
Argon.
The welding on these steel plates looks pretty good, but Smitty is tripling 
the number of welds.
Getting all these seams down to reflective metal is a real bitch. burning 
and scraping off the undercoating, and wire wheeling off every RCH of paint 
and primer.
I decided to take down the fronts as well, which look alot better, although 
the sheetmetal looks pretty flimsy.

Dan




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bill gaino" <gaino at earthlink.net>
To: "dan courty Beast" <dfcex at excaliburre.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2010 7:09 AM
Subject: pushbutton


> Hey Dan, I hear your stiffing up the beast. 1362 is a button car too. I 
> just rebuilt the rear uprights, and installed new bushings. I noticed a 
> lot of patchy welds myself.  Are you still running the SBC in the beast? 
> I have a 600hp 409 sbc roller motor in my drag Nova. If I had another 
> Pantera I would have to put it in it! Good luck brother...at the next orr 
> Bill 1362