quote:Dang, hope Bob doesn’t visit this forum anymore! But on the other hand the car went through some other owners after Bob. I guess one of the problems with Panteras is they sell too cheaply and because of that some owners don’t give them the respect and quality maintenance they deserve.
Mike
I reckon Bob would be pretty pleased to see his old car now Mike. She's in pretty good shape.
When I first climbed under the car I was really impressed with the underbody condition. Someone had been from one end of the car to the other and refinished it with a really good coat of underbody bitumen sealer. It was a first class job.
Then I had to pull the seats and carpet out to change the seatbelt mounts to suit Ozzie conditions. In doing this I found a 6" hole under the clutch pedal. Someone in the past had cut a section out of an old tin and cold soldered it into the floor, and then painted under the floor so it couldn't be seen.
Amazing the lengths people go to. A little extra effort and it could have been fixed properly. In the end the culprit is a leaking windscreen, trickling down the pedals, pooling on the floor and soaking the carpet underlay. Then running down the nice tight crease at the base of the sills where the sill meets the floor.
Three months of fabrication and welding and now the car is perfect. New floor, new sills, both inner and outer, new inner wheel arch, two new crossmembers and repairs to the main rail. Not a skerrick of rust left in it.
It would be interesting if the cars could talk, but sometimes we might not want to hear!!
Whilst on the subject, the other interesting discovery were acorns!! Yes, acorns, like from Oak trees! Something we don't have too many of down here.
Before the new carpets were fitted, I stripped and repainted all of the floors in the car. In doing so I also got to inspect the pass side sill through the large inspection holes. I was also clearing the drain points and visually checking for any other rust.
Thankfully I found the pass side sill to be perfect, but took nearly half a bucket of debris out of the upper and lower halves of the sill.
Most of the debris was fibreglass insulation as you would find in the roof of a house or garage, and the rest were acorn husks and caps!
Yep, something had been living inside the sills, made a nice warm little nest for winter and stocked up on nuts.
It took some hours of work to clean the sills out and then with a 3' long spray tube with a rotary head attached, I rust treated and then coated the inside of the left sill.
Given that the car was only in Boston for 18 months, I'd love to know where those critters originated?