Reply to "ZF & Porsche"

Thanks Mike. Other than the ZF, it's been a great car and I've had a great time with it in every way. Met a lot of great, I mean GREAT people because of this car. But I never have had a good ZF from day one in this car and have had 2 in it.

Right now it shifts without grinding as long as I am slow shifting into second going forward. All other forward gears are fine. When down shifting, I have to go very, very slow into second and give it a chance to whine down before going into gear and 1st is none at all unless I am stopped. I get what feels like a slip and clunking noise occasionally when going from backing up to going forward. Now I think I'm also grtting a vibration in it as well. I'm at a point with it I don't trust the ZF anymore and just waiting for it to finally stop working altogether.

I'm going to pull it over the next couple of weeks and check my clutch disc, pressure plate, T/O bearing and the flywheel and see if anything is going on there. If need be, I will replace everything there. But this clutch only has maybe 8000 miles on it. I'll pull the ZF bottom plate and the side plates and see if if there is anything obvious going on. I have replaced the Slave, Master and adjusted the peddles, master linkage and bleed and adjusted the clutch a 100 times. I am getting 1" of throw at the slave piston and .40 gap between the disk and flywheel. However I notice 2 seperations on the disk, one at the flywheel and one in the disk. I've talk to Greorge at MeLoed and he tells me it's not a seperating disk because it goes into first at a stop so it's disengaging. And he's probably right considering it does shift. I have had others look at it and tell me it couldn't be adjusted any better than I've done 100 times. Other than that the only choice I would have is to send the ZF out and have it rebuilt and I can't afford the major bill that is going to cost. I go into shock when I even think about it. I have changed the oil every 10 months in the last 5 years and am using Redline now. Still doesn't make a difference. The ZF has been the most fustrating part of this car for me and will probably be the straw the breaks the camels back unless I can work something out with one of the Porsche racing teams/shops I've known for years and do a conversion. I'm working on a deal to get it done on a trial basis and pay as I go plan. It's the only way I'll get this gearbox problem fixed once and for all since I don't have another 6 to 10 grand to throw at it out of pocket. I won't keep this car just to have it sit in my garage undrivable because of a gearbox, it will be time to take the loss and just move on to something different. If this one goes, I'll probably build another Porsche that just doesn't have the problems the Pantera does. It's a bitch after having come so far and spent so much money on this car. It's very fustrating and very dishearting. Such is life. :-)
Thanks Mike for caring. The people involved have been the greatest part of owning a Pantera without a doubt.
Thanks DeTom. With or without the car, I'm not going anywhere....

Besides, I'm the VP for the Phoenix Chapter of POCA and have committed to doing the POCA Raffle again next year.. :-) I may give up the car, but I will never give up the friends I've made because of the car. That would be a bigger loss than giving up the car to me.