Reply to "ZF & Porsche"

Yes Mike. Was going on what I'd been hearing for the last year from others and figured it would be easier to just bring it out in the open and see what others had to say.

Great news, absoultely.... bad news, still can't afford to have my ZF rebuilt. Just don't have the cash to throw into right now. My car is my daily driver, when it's down, so am I. I don't even own a second car. Don't want one. In all of the 8 or 9 Porsches, 2 Ferrari's, 2 Lamborghini and 2 Pantera's I've owened in the last 38 years, they have all been daily drivers. If they can't be or become too big a pain in the butt, then I get rid of them. I've had this one since 2000, longer than I've ever owned any car like this, and I can tell you for sure, it's been a piece of work and very fustrating at times. I've put up with more from this car than I have any others I've ever owned. I almost feel that I have had to rebuild this car, wait, I pretty much have, it's still not done and I really don't believe it ever will be anymore.. It might have been easier to have just gone with my fisrt thought which was to by a GT40 kit back in 2000. I look back on all the money spent, rebuilds, time, upgrades, redo's and everything else owning this car has put me through and cost me. I wish I had just bought a GT 40 kit which I was going to do before buying this car and built my own from the ground up. Which I will finally do if I sell this one. Like I said, looking back, I wish I would have gone that way now rather than straighten out someone else's nightmare. Then I can set it up the way I want right from the beginning using the drivetrain and parts I know work right from the beginning. Of course, I'll finally have to break down and by a second car which would become my first car for awhile if and when I do this :-)

Going to pull the box next week and see what's going on with the clutch set up, I really think this is where my problem is, well, I'm hoping anyway. I'll have it out in a matter of hours, a day for getting parts if I need them and back in the next day. a 3 day time period. Will also check the ring gear bolts and pull the side covers and see if there is anything noticable going on. If it's not the problem, I'll just drive it carefully as long as I can until the ZF dies and then decide if I sell the car as is or work out the deal with a conversion to a Porsche box and keep the ZF to take apart and learn from over time as I go through it myself.

It's the only part of the car I haven't been into, so maybe it's time for that too. If I had to pay the vendors to do all my work, I'd be even broker than I am now driving my Pantera. It's been that way with all my cars. But really with me, my enjoyment comes from working on it as much as driving it, most of the time anyway :-)

But I agree, the vendors most of the time are what keep us going and on the road. As with all vendors, no matter what you drive. But the Pantera vendors do go that extra mile considering these cars are 30+ years old. They are great people.