1/2 Shaft

Jack up the back, take off the wheel and undo 4 bolts at each end and it will come right out.

If you have the GTS exhaust, you will have to take the exhaust off to get the half shaft out.

Fordgt, you were correct. The wife watched intense as I worked on the shaft and shouted, "it sliped out".

It was difficult though to pull the bolts out, as the shaft kept moving around binding on the bolts when rotating to get at the bolts to pull them through. It finally came out though, but I had to remove the break and wiggle it around the A arms and exhaust. I have the big bore mufflers which didn't seem to get too much in the way.

Funny thing though, when I first jacked up the car and spun the right wheel, the wheel would only spin around about 180 degrees or so, and be stopped by the trans for some reason. Same when taking off the wheel to get the shaft out, could only spin about 180 degrees or so, and so it made it more difficult to get the shaft out. And the car it is in nutral. I thought in nutral the wheels should turn freely. Isn't that odd?

When you replace the half-shafts, I suggest you put them in "backwards" to the factory configuration, with the small-end closest to the transaxle. This allows the exhaust pipes a little more clearance over the smaller diameter part of the half-shafts. FYI, it also increases the unsprung weight a tiny bit, but unless you're racing for money, it will make no difference to you at all, except for lack of noise (from pipe hitting halfshaft) and more convenience in working on stuff like this. The halfshaft bolts, not metric, fit a pair of 5/8" wrenches.

Now I wonder if I need a new 1/2 shaft, or if one or two of the spicers just need replacing. When I set it lengthwise on the floor, hold the outside part with my hand, and then pull up and down on the shaft, there is about 1/8 to 1/4 inch play in the spicer (where the spicer moves away from the ring).

Have you separated the two halves yet? Because the two splined halves go together in a certain relationship. Putting them together any old way will make your Pantera shake like a wet dog while rolling down the road. If not, before you separate them, use a magic marker or something to index the two halves so you can reassemble as they were.

Thanks Jack. I didn't seperate it yet, but just trying to determine if my actual 1/2 shaft is bad (maybe gradually widened over time at the area where the Spicers are), or if I just need a rebuild. 1/8 to 1/4 play at the Spicer just seems like alot to me, but maybe that is typical for a just Spicer rebuild.

Incidently, I'm a little confused with your description: 'Spicer' refers to the U.S. manufacturer of the entire half-shaft, which consists of a pair of u-joints made by Spicer or someone else, yokes for the u-joints, a splined slip-joint in the middle, and adapters for each end (made by Spicer) to fit up to inner & outer Pantera stub-axles. To my knowlege, there is no part of any half-shaft assembly referred to as a 'spicer'. Are you speaking of the greasable splined center slip-joint? Stock Pantera half-shafts made in Italy also contain these as do British-made TVR-Griffeth halfshafts (for example).

The part that is moving in and out of socket is the round part labeled Spicer, about the size of a quarter. Looks like I need a parts manual to get the terminology correct on the various parts. I took the 1/2 shaft to a vendor and it looks like I have an original 1/2 shaft, with this Spicer insert, which apparently is a no no.

Must be nice to be able to drive to a vendor! I'm jealous.

Hmmmmm- sounds like your unit was pieced together from spare parts; nothing wrong with that until things go wrong for the next owner....Spicer-made units were primarliy sold due to the enormous price for factory- replacement u-joints in the '80s & early 90s. Recently, cheaper replacements have been found by all the vendors, so Spicer units are less in demand. As a last resort, if you can wait that long, the San Diego chapter of POCA sponsors a DeTomaso-only swap-meet & barbecue each July, in their area. Stock halfshafts are almost always for sale cheap. Or, you could advertise for a stock halfshaft assembly on this forum in the Wanted/For Sale section, or in your POCA newsletter & PI magazine.

So, I am now at the point of getting the right 1/2 shaft fixed properly for about $150 or spending just over $900 on two new nice chrome ones (again just an excuse to upgrade the car more). My left 1/2 shaft appears to be holding together real well with the spicers in place. Why are the original shafts so abundant for sale...guys just going for an upgrade in appearance, or are the original 1/2 shafts inferior?

AS I mentioned, for a long time, factory replacement u-joints were expensive- like over $70 each, and one normally replaced at least a pair at a time. Seems the OEM u-joints were a peculiar size. There was nothing wrong with the OEM half-shafts, but a lot of us figured the u-joint situation was only going to get worse as time went on. So LOTS of Spicer half-shafts were sold, using $15 truck u-joints. We worried about the situation- remember, if an inner u-joint breaks, the spinning halfshaft will extend and whop your transaxle case, breaking it! If an outer one lets go, the shaft extend and beat up the inner fender panel, the a-arm attach-points and the rear brakeline! All of this bad stuff has happened multiple times. My Spicers were originally painted gold while my OEMs were painted silver. Of course, anyone with a rattle-can could change that pretty quick....

Interesting discussion, Jack, and others!

I've got one simple question, though. How can I tell if I have the original half-shafts or aftermarket ones? Mine do not have any markings to tell me either way.

Also, are Spicers the only aftermarket halfshaft available? Is this what the boys in Europe ugrade to?

Original half shafts have noticeably larger yokes than spicers. With a little help from the Board, someone not familiar with each could measure the distance acrossed each to determine which one they had.

As far as which are better, I had a conversation with Dennis Quella at Pantera Performance a few years ago on the subject. Besides the normal Pantera work over the last several decades, he also has prepped ZFs for the hill climb guys in CO.

At that time, he indicated the primary reason for popularity of after market shafts was the poor availability and quality of OE u-joints. The CO uphill guys have used Pantera shafts without problems. -Very harsh high pony, impulse loading service. Dennis also said that he had seen stock u-joints themselves fracture and attributed it to the u-joint being larger in span, but not typically as beefy as Spicers, and also weekened by the location of the greases zerk holes.

The splines on poorly maintained half shafts and also ones that have seen a lot of hole shots with big tires and built engines tend to suffer a lot of slop and/or not slide freely.

Spicers are very comparable to mid-year Vette half shafts in size, but Vette shafts are fixed length. The week spot in Vette rear ends was third member casting, not the haft shafts themselves, although it was not unheard of for big block cars to shear the four high grade bolts at the wheel carrier or snap a u-bolt at the third member yoke (been there-done that).

To answer Kevin's question, sure- if you have 'some' money and a lathe handy, it's possible to adapt BMW or Porsche CV-joint half-shafts to the Pantera. One early Pantera now in FL has a large number of BMW 635 parts in it including the 17" wheels & half-shafts- it was a basket-case restored with what was at hand, and the '91-93 Pantera 200 has CV joint half-shafts as stock. I'm not sure of the particular advantages of a CV vs a Hooke-type u-joint, but it is possible and it works.

I have some pictures of stock and Spicer half shafts laying side by side if anyone is interested. Another clue to the difference is weight. I weighed them at 17 lbs. for the Spicer and 20 lbs. for the stock. Dennis Quella has stockc U-joints listed at $40 each. I think the ones without grease zirks are more.
Mine were installed with a variety of bolts. I suspect the 6 bolts that took a 15mm wrench were the 11mm, 1.25 pitch that have been mentioned occasionally. The 8 NAS aircraft bolts took an 11/16 wrench and the 2 grade 8 bolts took a 5/8 wrench. All of the nuts were 7/17-20 so they all took a 5/8 wrench.

Jim, I'd love to see them! Please e-mail them.

Thanks!

Kevin,
Post an e-mail address or contact me at chendric@bellsouth.net for those pictures.

I remember something about some stock half shafts having sleeves in the yokes so they could use Spicer U-joints. Might that be what Does200 has?

Just checked the P I Motorsports site. They are still offering the Spicer half shafts at $599.99 for a pair. That is the best price I have seen recently.
See: http://www.pim.net/hpage.html

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Originally posted by Jim:
Kevin,
Post an e-mail address or contact me at chendric@bellsouth.net for those pictures.

I remember something about some stock half shafts having sleeves in the yokes so they could use Spicer U-joints. Might that be what Does200 has?

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Jim, I think I do have the spicer U-joints in the half shafts. The spicer U-joints are moving in and out of the yolk about 1/8 to 1/4 inch. It is at a vendor right now, and I should know soon if it is repairable with the correct U-joints (not spicer). My vendor tells me (like Jack states in an earlier post), that some vendors were putting in spicer U-joints into the stock half shafts in the past because they were much cheaper. I guess that over time, mine some how became loose. Some say the half shaft even may have widened over time, which is why it may be so loose. I will know Monday if that is the case or not.

I think stock U-joints have 32mm diameter bearing caps and are 106.5mm across.
My yokes were bored oversize so the caps were rotating in the yokes rather than being a press fit.

Wow, this post is getting long. Just one more thing. I believe there are probably three (and maybe more) types of 1/2 shafts that I have noticed on Panteras (photos of #2 and #3 below may look to be similar, but if you look closely, you can see they are different).

The three I have seen are:

(1) The stock one, which I am now trying to get serviced for my Orange car (no photo, sorry), but the one I have is shown on page 41 of the 2000 Hall Pantera catalogue (Stock or not, this is the one I have).

(2) The Spicer unit sold by PI, and probably other vendors (photo below of the one from PI).
http://www.pim.net/90202axle4.jpg

(3) This unit below from a photo off of Pantera Place of Toni Fasola's 1/2 shaft (actually this unit is on my other Group 4 show car, and I would like to find the source for this one, as they look nice chromed. Anyone know the source of this one?).
http://www.panteraplace.com/Tech%20Info/Fasola%2019.jpg

DOES 200. Could you please email me privately at ziggymeredith@insightbb.com . I have a question regarding your master cyl. change that you posted a while back. I could not find your email address.
Thanks

quote:

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Originally posted by Kevin Perry:
Must be nice to be able to drive to a vendor! I'm jealous.

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Yes Kevin, one of the benefits of Southern CA is the variety of vendors...and other things if you pay a visit to the beach. It is nice to have the ability to ask around for various opinions (kind of like getting a second opinion of a medical opinion from various doctors). To sum up, my one vendor fixed the stock 1/2 shaft just by taking out the spicer U jounts and replacing with correct U jounts. Some day I do want to go to a chrome unit though, and have yet to find the ones in my post above (item #3, as the outer edges chromed up real smooth).