Jmardy, send your broken drive to
J DeRyke
1520 Brandi Rose Way
Minden, NV 89423
And I'll see what I can do. When I fix them, I add a zerk fitting so the poor thing can then be serviced annually. The repair is not expensive as I'm really not in business- more of a hobby.
MOTORHEAD FUN WITH THE ZF TRANSAXLE
1.) To install a speedo angle drive correctly, screw that big dual-thread nut all the way onto the angle adapter until it bottoms (by hand). Then screw the other end of the big nut onto the ZFs threaded adapter (again by hand), which requires un-screwing the big nut a little, as one set of its threads are backward but it has no swivel. The assembly may not be very tight at the end, but that's OK, as transaxle lube is sealed with an internal o-ring, not by the tightness of the nut's threads.
2.) If you do get a small lube leak, things get tricky. Before doing ANYTHING ELSE, clamp a Vice-Grip pliers to the drive tang sticking out of the ZF. This is vital, as the tang is the back end of a 4" long steel drive extension off the ZF mainshaft. If you remove that innocent little 10mm bolt next to the assembly without having hold of the drive tang, the extension shaft will slip down inside the transmission and you'll need to disassemble the whole ZF to get it back! If this happens to you, DO NOT DRIVE THE CAR AT ALL UNTIL THE LITTLE SHAFT IS REMOVED!
There's very little extra room inside the cases, and a spinning transmission gear will snag the now-loose extension shaft and RAM IT THROUGH THE ALUMINUM CASE! This is a $1000+ disassemble-and-TIG-weld repair job, AFTER you remove the ZF and ship it to a specialist. It also assumes the transmission gear didn't break a tooth- more $$$$! All this is not exactly a design flaw but is the result of our ZF being originally designed to run upside-down in the earlier GT-40 and Mangusta (as a 5 DS-25/1 model). Ford (correctly) decided the Pantera needed more ground clearance for public streets than the racers did on manicured tracks, so ZF in Germany simply rotated the castings and flipped the ring gear to the opposite side for the Pantera's 5 DS-25/2 ZF model.
Worked perfectly and gave an extra 3-1/2" of road clearance, but now instead of the speedo extension shaft sliding out on the ground when the retaining bolt is removed, it slides inside the cases unless gripped. Once that 10mm bolt is removed, the threaded boss AND SHAFT can be pulled out as an assembly from your ZF by hand. The sealing o-ring can then be R & R-ed. You really need the illustrated 50-pg ZF Overhaul Manual to understand what's going on inside. For POCA members, a free downloadable copy is in the POCA Archives via the Web, along with dozens of other manuals & info. Or reprints are available from all the vendors or from PI Motorsports (who sponsor this forum).