[DeTomaso] : Stock shoulder harness mounting system

Himes, Terry (397C) terry.himes at jpl.nasa.gov
Wed Dec 18 23:20:42 EST 2013


Holy Crap!  That doesn't look safe to me!


Terry W. Himes
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Deep Impact Sequence Team Lead
Deep Impact Spacecraft Engineer & Activity Lead
Phone: (818) 393-6261
Cell:     (818) 653-8213
Fax:     (818) 393-3147
thimes at jpl.nasa.gov<mailto:thimes at jpl.nasa.gov>


From: Mike Drew <MikeLDrew at aol.com<mailto:MikeLDrew at aol.com>>
Date: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 7:00 PM
To: "detomaso at poca.com<mailto:detomaso at poca.com>" <detomaso at poca.com<mailto:detomaso at poca.com>>
Subject: [DeTomaso] : Stock shoulder harness mounting system


Hi guys,

I bet few of you have ever had the opportunity to poke around inside the chassis of a Pantera to see how the shoulder harness/interior firewall cover is retained.  All you can really know is that there are two big bolts which thread into some mysterious cavity, and are responsible for saving your life in the event of a crash.

I had the opportunity to learn all about this with my car, back in 1996.  The guy restoring my car couldn't figure out what kind of bolt went into the hole, and tried to run a tap through there and change the threads.  The tap broke off inside the hole, leading to a major nightmare for me, an all-day project to fix it.

Since I spent the other day cutting up the remains of a wrecked Pantera, I took it upon myself to cut the firewall open so I could show you guys what's going on in there.  It turns out there is a stamped steel piece with curved, radiused edges (presumably to impart some sort of strength?) that is spot-welded to the inside of the firewall channel.  A simple hardware store nut is welded to this plate, and that's what the bolt threads into.

(In my car, what actually happened is that the tap jammed in this nut, and then the welds broke, leaving the nut spinning freely with the tap trapped in place, and it then had to be cut out etc. etc.)

Here are a couple of photos worth a thousand words each:

[image.jpeg]

[image.jpeg]

Mike
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