[DeTomaso] Upgrade List
Bill Moore
Bill at Incendium.com
Sun Sep 16 12:37:45 EDT 2012
Stephen,
My story is that I bought the 1st and only Pantera I had ever seen, good
news and bad, but it's been great. I drove it home and put on about 150
miles, then I bit the bullet, this was a 38 year old used and abused toy.
Upgrades that had been done were short, aluminum intake manifold, Holley
carb, brass window motor gears, fiberglass fender flares, and 15 foot paint.
Safety first.
1) All the rubber hoses
2) Suspension rubber and bushings
3) Brakes, Willwood front and back (here is the slippery slope)
4) Steering Wheel
5) Headers and GTS mufflers
6) MSD ignition
7) New Campy clone, wheels and tires, see #3 above.
I don't have the knowledge, place or time to do the work myself so, more
money and B/S
Drove it about another 300 miles before winter.
What's the biggest dollar item on this car ? the 38 year old ZF ! Yes it
should be serviced. Rather than ship the car in November I procrastinated
til the end of January before shipping it to Dennis in Castle Rock. Yes the
ZF required the work. And here we go again, another slippery slope, long
story short, complete cooling system, suspension, shocks, steering rack,
front valance, steel chin spoiler, split front & rear bumpers, 100A 1 wire
alt, volt gauge, etc etal but the gas tank and the engine has been serviced
and or upgraded. Flew down to Denver and drove it home to Calgary, what a
worthwhile BLAST ! This car is solid, fast, tight and a great 15 footer. I'm
not sure I want to clean the road grime off from the trip.
A short story. LOL.
-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com] On
Behalf Of Stephen Nelson
Sent: September-16-12 9:09 AM
To: 'David D Fisher'; 'Rob Dumoulin'; 'michael at michaelshortt.com';
ParaPantera at aol.com
Cc: 'pantera list'
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Upgrade List
David, Michael and Ron - thank you for your thoughts and experience on
making these cares reliable.
My goal is to buy a car that has already been made very drivable - so I am
in effect looking for a punch list of the things that will likely need
rectified to make the car reliable. As Michael points out, it can get
expensive in a hurry taking care of the niggling things that can strand one
- and, unfortunately, resale prices don't cover all the really valuable work
that enthusiasts do to make their cars better.
Reminds me of the old question - is a restored car more valuable than an
original? While the answer obviously depends on what a buyer wants (and
whether there is another person at the auction that will push the buyer to
his limit), reality is that restoring a car in the price range demanded by
Pantera's is typically a money loosing proposition.
Between your three's posts, and what I am gleaning by following this forum I
am beginning to understand what I want on a car that I will ultimately use
for long distance driving. Having already done all the work myself to make
my '69 XKE as bullet proof as I can, I really want to find a car that has
already been upgraded, and has covered at least most of the issues raised by
you gentlemen.
One question covering an item not on the lists - Does one typically need to
replace the original coolant pipes with stainless? I would think they could
be corroded as well as have significant build-up in them?
After compiling what I have seen so far, this is my list:
Fuel System
Manifold and carburetor
Fuel hoses
Vacuum hoses
Engine belts
Brakes
Rebuild brake system
Upgrade front rotors to Mustang vented
Stainless brake lines
Emergency brake cable
Clutch slave and flush system
Electrical
Replace fuse box
Replace ignition switch
Update alternator
If leaving amp meter - add a circuit breaker
MSD Distributor
Tach adaptor
Wires and plugs
Door seals
Suspension
Suspension bushings.
Shocks
Rear suspension lower pivots - often seized
Rebuild steering rack
Rear axle bearings
Billet axles
Look at wheel offset and make sure not causing steering challenge
Cooling
Aluminum radiator and new fans
Heater core boil or replace
Radiator cap
Flush cooling system
Radiator temperature switch
Radiator hoses
Tranny/Differential
Second gear syncro
Higher final drive ratio
Deck lid shocks
A/C core
Recover seats
Again, thank you all for taking the time to give me your thoughts!
Stephen Nelson
SNClocks.com <http://www.snclocks.com/>
Click here for our new
<http://www.snclocks.com/TheRestofourWorld/Hammered-Dulcimers/About-Steves-D
ulcimers/19824807_4sHGgj#1558377542_LKmkrT7> Hammered Dulcimers website
Click here for my new blog <http://www.perfectoldman.com/> on finding
happiness in retirement
_____
From: David D Fisher [mailto:fisher95020 at yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 9:40 PM
To: Rob Dumoulin; Stephen Nelson
Cc: pantera list
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Upgrade List
Stephen,
I am an owner for just under a year now and bought a pretty solid looking
car, but one that the previous owner had done everything possible to not
spend money on. Still, it was relatively rust free, ok paint and the older
2 pod dash that I was after.
Since then my priority is mechanical first, beauty second. I tend to do
more than I really need to to just drive it, but here's my experience:
Before the list scares you off, I should say that I drove the car home for
300 miles, so it was driveable, but it was 40 years old drivable, was not
reliabe, and not tight.
Lastly, all said and done, I feel the cars are significantly undervalued.
I was comparing this to a Ferrari of the same kind of money and IMHO the
Pantera is much more car.
What I have done:
1) Replace everything rubber - hoses, belt, brake piston seals, tires door
seals, etc.
2) Rebuild brakes - stock brakes aren't bad for street use once rebuilt
3) Replace e brake cable
4) Replace fuel and vacumm lines
5) Replace suspection bushing
6) Replace shocks if not done already
7) Replace clutch slave and flush out the old fluid
8) Update alternator
9) New rad if not already aluminium
10) Replace rad caps and flush system
10) New rad temp switch
11) Steering rack rebuild (not done yet on my car)
12) 2nd gear syncro - not done but needed
13) Rear suspension lower bushing up uprights seized.
14) Rear axle bearing shot - I went to billet axles, but only because I plan
for more power later. 1 bearing was spun
15) I already had MSD, but the distributor advance to seized and the tach
adaptor fried
16) Door locks gummy
17) Replace deck lid shocks
18) Replace ignition lock
19) New A/C condensor core
20) Recharge A/C (already converted to R134)
21) Repair split heater core
22) Motor rebuild
Optional:
1) Upgrade front rotors to Mustang vented
2) Upgrade rear axles
3) Recover seats
4) Small headlight kit
5) Big brakes
6) etc, etc, etc
Hope this helps,
David
From: Rob Dumoulin <rob at dumoulins.net>
To: Stephen Nelson <steve at snclocks.com>
Cc: pantera list <detomaso at realbig.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 6:45 PM
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Upgrade List
Stephen, I posed the same topic a while ago and got a rather cold response.
It does seem that there are an abundance of Pantera information spread
around everywhere and some owners have done a great job documenting their
projects. Good as it may be, it does not provide discussions around the pros
and cons of what was done and very few lessons learned. I think a structured
Pantera Wiki site would allow this community to define some topics and
document equipment options and lessons learned in an attempt to build the
ultimate Pantera for:
- Reliable Daily Driver
- Show Car
- Open Road Racer
- SCCA Track Car
- Bone Stock replacement
- Restomod
For topics like flaw with and mods to:
- Cooling System
- Electrical (ignition, lights, charging, accessories, fuse box, dash,
alternator)
- Engine
- Gauges
- Hubs
- Brakes
- ZF
- Lights
- A/C
- Heater
On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 6:19 PM, Stephen Nelson <steve at snclocks.com> wrote:
> This forum is a great way to start to learn about the finer points of
> owning and maintaining a Pantera. Oh, and about upgrading or updating
> these fantastic cars. So, wanting to learn more about what should be
> done to bring a car up to current "standards", I did a search for
> upgrade, update, and modification. And figured out that there is a
> lot written about these cars tail lights.
>
>
>
> Is anyone aware of a previous post or string of posts that covers what
> needs to be done to make these cars all they can be today? I suppose
> the list would need to start off with items that really need done to
> keep the car from having a major oops - like the issue with half
> shafts. And progress from there to the "wanna-have" items.
>
>
>
> If there isn't such a list - perhaps some of you more knowledgeable
> types could start a listing for us wanna-have-a-Pantera-that-runs-great
types.
>
>
>
> Stephen Nelson
>
>
>
> SNClocks.com <http://snclocks.com/> <http://www.snclocks.com/>
>
> Click here for our new
> <
>
http://www.snclocks.com/TheRestofourWorld/Hammered-Dulcimers/About-Steves-D
> ulcimers/19824807_4sHGgj#1558377542_LKmkrT7> Hammered Dulcimers
> website
>
> Click here for my <http://www.perfectoldman.com/> new blog on finding
> happiness in retirement
>
>
>
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--
Rob DuMoulin
904.476.8744
rob at dumoulins.net
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