Reply to "Stress cracks"

According to G. Malmberg (http://www.hemipanter.se/#Chassis%20and%20components)"The steel body of the Pantera does not tolerate rust as this completeley obliterates torsionall stability. In a 30 year old car rust is a problem. No two ways about it! I have torsion tested a number of Pantera chassis. Rusted as well as rebuilt. A rebuilt (or new) chassis is stiff enough for hard street use. Rusted are NEVER!. I tested a nice looking chassis that could only hold 700 foot pound/degree!!! On this car almost all of the profiled middle rocker pantel section was rusted out.

Torsional stability.

700 fp rust figures, has given Pantera a bad stiffness reputaion. Especially since the car not seldom looks quite sound from the outside. Thus making it easy to put it down to bad engineering . People then start to bolt on all kinds of stiffening devices in place of fixing the rust. But even a sound Pantera could use a few more foot pounds of stiffness. When twisting the chassis it is easily seen where flex occurs. Stiffening of those areas by triangulation, is not always easily accomplished. One would prefer be able to get in and out the car, have a motor in the engine bay, etc. This very often result in tubes positioned where there is space left. Bent tubes, and tube joints where the tube intersection does not line up. Tube reinforcements also create new stress concentrations and weak points elsewhere."

I think G. Malmberg hit the "bulls eye". Adding a handeling/stiffening kit may cure the symptoms, but not the cause.

I am in the prosess of "some bodywork" on # 6287. Rear att. points for the suspention, channels from rearplate to Firewall, B-posts to rocker panel and reinforcements on the floor/footwells.

I am half way in the welding prosess. My point is that a nice looking car -may have some issues inside.. As the Germans say: "Ausser blank, inner krank"