Warning, contains both total loss of power and lots of smoke in the cabin, not for the faint of heart...
A: Drove my son to the train station in the Champ. When returning towards my car, I noticed a very old geezer in a small crap car parking next to me. He parked with one wheel on the road, clearly not in control. I worried he would open the door into my car, but he got out alright. Then he started looking into the Longchamp. Then at the back. And the other side. And the front. And then he took out a cell phone and photographed it. By then I had reached him, and we started to talk. He said that he thought he knew every car in the world, but not this one. I told him about it. He told me about his 80s formula open wheel race car he still had. Don't know if he still drives it, that would be impressive. Had to run...
B: Stopped at a red light. A group of sweaty runners stopped and pointed at me. They jogged in one place until I could drive, only after they had heard me accelerate (I was a little aggressive), did they run on
C: Took the Pantera for a drive, first lengthy drive after the rebuild. I've got an ICE rev limiter now, adjustable with micro switches from the cabin. I tried to put it at 3000 rpm to test, and it worked fine. Pushed the micro switch 3 times to get back to 6000 rpm limit, and the engine just died. No power! Cars that I had just overtaken with a vengeance piling up behind me. I looked at the box, and saw that I had in fact set the rpm limit to 0 rpm! Funny system, when you push the switch above the number it decreases. Those Aussies, everything upside down...
D: Less than a minute later I noticed the air from the vents was warm, not air conditioned anymore . Further, I heard a new sound. And then I saw smoke in the cabin! This time I stopped immediately to get my fire extinguisher. Strange smoke, not something burning, not vapor. Turns out it was A/C, a hose broke. It looks like an original hose, strangely when I found the leak, it was not worn through, it was a very round nice hole, like someone inserted a screw and took it out again. So off to the A/C guy again, I'm paying his vacation for sure. Maybe I should change all hoses this winter...
DeTomaso ownership has its ups and downs for sure. Never boring
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