[DeTomaso] A-arm connections

[Dan Courtney]

Hey Bill,

Sorry for the delayed reply. I've been down with a bad flu all week.
And my welder, Smitty, cracked some ribs Monday.
It means "The Beast" won't make it's scheduled return to Willow Springs this 
weekend.
Regarding the balancing, the 1/2 shafts have been balanced and Dennis says 
no need to re-balance with the new uprights, axels, etc and we do have one 
local company in San Diego that still does on car speed balancing, my buds 
at Clarence Brown in Kearny Mesa.
You are right, The Beast does have a million oil lines, but the funny thing 
is none of them was the cause of my fatal oil leak during Silver State. It 
was a pinhole in the rear outside front corner of a valve cover, as luck 
would have it, in the least visible spot in the engine bay!
Regarding being afraid to drop the clutch, to tell you the truth, even with 
the Spicer 1/2 shafts and truck U'Joints, I'm also afraid to.
Dan



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bill gaino" <gaino at earthlink.net>
To: "Dan Courtney" <dfcex at excaliburre.com>
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 5:40 AM
Subject: Re: A-arm connections


Your doing the right thing with the hollow axles. Corvette, does it too. 
Factory axles from Detomaso are hollow, It gives flex. I did standard axle 
bearings... you are EXTREME duty. Goran won't dump his clutch. If I 
remember.. your axle broke on a track turn? You have a lot of oil lines 
everywhere.  They asked Linburg.. why are you flying across with only 1 
engine. He replied "less engines means less chance of engine trouble"  If I 
remember correct, you got put out of an orr with an oil leak too.  If we 
could ever figure whats going to break next. I went through 3 trans in my 
race nova. I looked at everybodys trany, engine mounts, most were all 
different. I had a rear engine plate, one solid block mount ..lf. and a 
rubber on the pass. Turns out the driveshaft was so far out of balance it 
shook the trans apart. I replaced the shaft and balaced wheels and tires. It 
took a tenth off the ET... Balance is EVERYTHING! Both in the engine and the 
driveline!  I would look at balancing the half shafts with the axle shafts 
and rotors. We had a guy come to out textile plant with a vibration 
anylyzer. He had sensors that he magneticly attached to fan housings. He 
read the amount of vibration with an analog needle gauge. Then he added 
weights to the fan blade. If it got better he added more, or moved the 
weight to the other side. Things ran smoother after that. I'm sure the 
technology is more advanced now. If you get anything out of this  make 
it.... BALANCE IS EVERYTHING!  If it turns, or rotates...balance it!  With a 
street car, you can feel a bad driveshaft.  With MY drag car. It was so 
violent down the track, you never knew how out of balance it was.... untill 
I got it balanced.. Talk to your people about how they would balance our 
drivelines?  Remember the old machine that spun the tire and wheel while it 
was on the car?  Speed balance..Bill

-----Original Message-----
>From: Dan Courtney <dfcex at pacbell.net>
>Sent: Feb 15, 2010 2:50 AM
>To: bill gaino <gaino at earthlink.net>
>Cc: detomaso at realbig.com
>Subject: Re: A-arm connections
>
>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
>