Big bearing front spindles?

The Bearings used on the standard Pantera axles are not what you would consider small.
In fact they are the same size, (or close as damn to it) as what is fitted to many modern larger & heavier cars.
I have an 02' GM Holden Commodore Ute, (Ute version of the Australian made Pontiac GTO).
Bearings are the same size & the car is 1600kg, (3520 lb) front engine LS1 V8 & fitted with wide low profile wheels.
Over 100 thou on the clock & bearings have never even given a hint of being worn.
Its weight, front engine, low profile tyres & the fact that it gets driven hard is testament to the capability of the bearings.
We also fit the same bearings to our off-road race buggies.
Although these buggies are much lighter, the bearings are greatly stressed when you land from a jump of several feet at high speed, as well as constant pounding over rough terrain at speed.

Sure the Pantera has more wheel offset outward which causes more bearing stress than a standard front face wheel application.
But the Pantera is light, rear engine & only really sees bearing stress in hard corners & hard braking, but again, not as much as a larger heavier car.

I think as long as you use quality bearings, quality grease, well adjusted & keep an eye on adjustment I doubt you would ever have issues.

Obviously this is just my opinion.
Regards,
Tony.

The bearing size itself is not really an issue.
If you compare the front hubs on the Pantera to the 65-69 Mustangs you will find that they interchange.
The od of the front hubs on the Mustangs was chaged during the 69 model production to use a larger inside diameter bearing to increase the strength to handle the change over to 60 series wide oval tires.
This was also a God send for racers since the weak link of the front suspension was the hubs.
Wilkinson is listing only the GT5 as a replacement part.
I suppose that I will need to call him to see if it uses the same bearings since no one here seems to know.
It isn't only the size of the hub shaft on the Pantera, but the size of the bolts that hold it all together is on the wimpy side by comparison to the Mustangs.
In looking at all of this comparison, if the size of the tires, the width of the wheel, and size of the brakes is increased and put into heavy service like racing or even open track, I have my doubts that there won't be some kind of an issue there.
Granted there is a difference in the front/rear weight loading of the suspension between the two cars but it is best to be safe here rather then dead with track personnel picking you up with a vacuum cleaner and broom and shovel?
The front hub of the Pantera seems to have only one choice that I see, so there may not be another way to go but I'm just looking for information on this.'
There doesn't seem to be alot of that available?
Thanks.

Does anyone have any documented incidents of any Pantera spindle failures over the last 40 years?

I've never heard of one.

quote:

Originally posted by 1973 Pantera:
Does anyone have any documented incidents of any Pantera spindle failures over the last 40 years?

I've never heard of one.

Hum? Why would you?

The answer from Wilkinson is that there is only one front spindle, so that ends it. No other choices.

I was just curious if anyone had ever personally had or heard of a failure of a Pantera spindle.

BTW, the Ferrari 308/328 and Porsche 911, 930, and 944 use the same front bearings as the Pantera (TIMKIN: LM67048 inner, LM11949 outer).

I had a spindle failure on a 1969 Mercury Cougar. Thankfully it happened as I was just backing out of a parking space. It sheared right in half. If it would of happened just a minute later I would have been zooming down the interstate at 70+!!

quote:

Originally posted by 1973 Pantera:
I was just curious if anyone had ever personally had or heard of a failure of a Pantera spindle.

BTW, the Ferrari 308/328 and Porsche 911, 930, and 944 use the same front bearings as the Pantera (TIMKIN: LM67048 inner, LM11949 outer).

I had a spindle failure on a 1969 Mercury Cougar. Thankfully it happened as I was just backing out of a parking space. It sheared right in half. If it would of happened just a minute later I would have been zooming down the interstate at 70+!!

It isn't common on a street car, but who knows for sure? Certainly Detomaso or Ford never felt there was a need to upgrade it like the Mustang.

The od of the thick part of the spindle on the Pantera is 32mm. Exactly the same as the 65 through 69 Mustangs. In '70 ford increased the OD to 35mm.

When you put them side to side, it is like night and day.

Interestingly enough the OD of the bearings was kept the same so the likely answer was the spindle was too thin.

The weight distribution is the oposite in the Mustang vs. Pantera. 40/60 and 60/40.

I suspect you would have to speak to a serious Pantera racer for the answer on this but apparently the Pantera factory race cars use the same spindle.

While I had everything apart I thought I would see if I could increase my knowledge here.

I find the Pantera unusual also in the size of the brakes. The front rotors are 10.5" od just like the Mustangs. The Mustang vented rotor fits right on the Pantera hub. You do need to mess with the wheel studs though.

If you wanted to mess with the wheel studs you could swap a Mustang front hub right onto the Pantera.

The odd thing about the brakes on the Pantera is that the rear discs are 11" in the back but have a little pad. So what's with that? The small pad cancels out the bigger rotor? Very strange if you ask me.

My notes show the stock front rotor is 11.125 diameter and the stock rear is 11.75.

We offer an upgrade for the rear brakes alone to balance out the braking performance once the proportioning valve is removed from the front brake circuit.

quote:

Originally posted by Z06 Pantera:
My notes show the stock front rotor is 11.125 diameter and the stock rear is 11.75.

We offer an upgrade for the rear brakes alone to balance out the braking performance once the proportioning valve is removed from the front brake circuit.

I have mine apart right now. The front is exactly the same od as the Mustang rotor. 11.3".

The rear is 11.5"+/- od.

They are the original rotors with 30,000 miles on them.

I also have mine apart. The front measures just under 11.125 and the rear measures just over 11.625. So know the question is why are yours smaller than mine???

Beats the Hell out of me. Now I feel so inadequate. I hate being too small? Maybe I have a defective tape measure? YIKES!

quote:

Beats the Hell out of me. Now I feel so inadequate. I hate being too small? Maybe I have a defective tape measure? YIKES!

I also feel that the standard rear brakes on the Pantera are inadequate.
They would be just fine for a front engine car.
But a mid mount layout like the Pantera transfers less weight to the front during heavy braking.
So you can fit larger rear brakes to the Pantera & get the car to pull up quicker.
This is because the Pantera sits flatter during heavy braking.
I think the first thing to do is throw the original Pantera brake proportioning valves in the bin.
They are designed to control hydraulic brake pressure front to rear & hydraulic pressure between the two front wheels.
The Front one restricts total brake force just from being there; you may loose something like 10% of total brake force through this valve.

I upgraded my rear brakes to 12” vented Wilwood rotors with 4 piston Wilwood calipers.
Made custom caliper mounts to adapt the calipers to the original uprights.
Then fitted a Wilwood master cylinder with a bigger 1 1/8” bore to gain more volume to supply those larger rear calipers.
Because of the larger master cylinder the pedal will be harder, so I fitted a dual diaphragm 8” brake booster to give more vacuum advantage.
Then fitted an adjustable lever type Tilton proportioning valve in the rear brake line.
All brake hoses are 1/8” stainless braided.
During testing I would do emergency stops from around 80 kph, (50 mph).
The rears were locking first, so I dialed out the rears one click at a time on the proportioning valve until I just had the front brakes locking before the rears.
Brakes are much better with the limitation being the capability of the 15” tyres.

Regards,
Tony.

OK. I'm back after getting reassurance that I'm not too small after all. Cost me a few bucks and she probably would have told me anything I wanted to hear anyway since I was paying?

I went and bought a real tape measure and it isn't missing any digits.

My front Pantera rotor measures 11.060" od. The 68 Mustang according to Centric is 11.29" od.

The rear Pantera needs to be taken apart and is difficult to get without brake calipers. Seems to have a 5-5/8" radius, until it comes apart to verify.

What started all of this is that I just finished a project on my 68 Shelby GT350 on which I installed the front brake system that was used on the 68 Shelby Trans-Am Mustang race cars (with 15" rims) and the 69 Boss 302 Trans-Am cars.

That system used what the racers refer to as the "big Lincoln" brakes. For 15" wheels, many Ford racers consider it to be the ultimate.

They originally used the Lincoln/T-bird front rotors and 4 piston brake calipers.

The rotor over the years has gone from 12"od to the now standardized (because it fits all of the big Ford cars from 65-69) 11.73" od rotor. It is 1.24" thick and vented.

Because it is out of the "Ford family" it fits the 65-73 Mustang hubs which are also used on the big Fords. The Pantera has a Ford family front hub, and it fits it also.

The 70 Mustang got an increase in the size of the spindle od on both the small and large bearings. The large bearing went from 32mm id on the 65-69 cars to 35mm on the 70 and up. As such it is a cheap insurance for a race car to switch the spindles over to the large race spindles.

Since when you look at the engineering cross overs here, I was investigating if the Pantera front spindles followed suit with the Mustangs.

What I was investigating was how simple or complicated the adapter would need to be to swap this "trans-am" braking system over to the Pantera.

Enough explanation?

Now for those of you that will immediately jump up and yell "Heretic", I say "bless you my son".

The Wilewood rotor with aluminum hat that would be the substitute for the Tbird rotor, is virtually the same weight. Most of the weight is caused by the thickness of the rotor which is the same. So don't go screaming about the weight differences, because there is virtually no difference, or not enough to argue over? Certainly if you compare the price differences between these two set ups, the "Big Lincoln", becomes very attractive and many would be willing to overlook the fact that the new aftermarket would be closer to the ultimate?

The Lincoln caliper true is iron and not as fancy as the aluminum aftermarket. It is four piston and the pads are nice and large. Porterfield R4S pads are stocked because of the commonality with the set up.

But in all honesty, wearing all that anodized aluminum like "BREMBO!", with IT'S SEEMIMNGLY neon light logo names on them make me feel like a Tiajuana pimp.

Anyway, what came out of this is that the 68 Mustang front rotor (without the cast in hub) is really a good substitute for the stock front Pantera rotor. Transfer right over to the P front hub.

Lots, lots cheaper then the P car piece from Wilkinson too.

Now the rear is another story. Still just looking at that one.

It does look like the Tbird rotor fits for od and hub alignment but the thickness doesn't look like it will work with the stock rear P car calipers?

I've come to the conclusion that the tiny stock rear P pad was used on that big rear rotor to eliminate necessity for a proportioning valve, front/back, by Detomaso.

Now, so far I would say that the T-bird vented rotor od will transfer over to the hub assembly in the rear, but the entire P rear caliper causes all sorts of substitution limitations?

What is the point of putting the rotor in, except for a cheap substitution to the stock rotor, if the stock P rear pads are so small?

Irregardless, I think that an inline proportioning valve is going to be required if the rear is played with at all.

Considering how hard you will need to test the car to adjust it to, you literally will need a race track all to yourself to work on that adjustment, so for me, on all of this, the jury is still out.

I am looking at the Volvo S60 R calipers as an alternative in both locations too. I suspect though that they would be a better swap on a larger rotor because of the stock size of the Volvo rotors at 15.9" od, and the probable interference with the pads on a smaller rotor?

They might be a really good swap over on a big wheel Pantera though?

At this point I really am wondering what the factory race cars did for brakes back when... You can't convince me that they ran the stock production set up?

OK. Happy bickering now gentlemen. I really know how to stir it up, huh?

I agree with Tony- the rear brakes are marginal. The front calipers are excellent and front rotors are easily upgraded in a variety of ways. The overall thickness you need depends entirely on whether you track-race the car and how hard. BTW, vented rotors stabilize temperatures 100 or so degrees F lower than solid rotors but this only happens after many repeated hard stops. A 0.81"-wide vented rotor will also overheat if pushed too hard. This doesn't happen on the street, by the way- which is why many street conversions from vendors use same-thickness vented rotors as stock: 0.81". They also allow one to use stock calipers. A 1.25" thick rotor (same as was used in the LeMans racers in '72) is pro-track-sized and won't overheat unless you really beat on your car, but are quite a bit heavier and need wider, heavier calipers to fit them. All this extra mass also really needs heavier springs and better shocks to control the extra weight. Your call as to how bad you need 'big brakes'.

Rear rotor swaps are a problem; first because you must remove and completely tear down the rear uprights before trying to fit things up. This stops many owners right there. Next, you find that the 'hat' section inset for the rear must be machined to clear the outboard protruding section of the rear upright- which takes a much larger open space inside the 'hat' than at the front. So the 'same' rotors won't work on both ends unaltered. The 3rd little difficulty is clearance between the rotor 'hat' and the wheel stud-heads. This can also change a little in either direction once everything is torqued down and hot. I've seen vented-disc conversions that hit the stud-heads hard enough to leave grooves; not a good idea in a part holding your wheel on!

Not racing our Pantera for money, I converted to early Porsche 911 0.81" thick vented discs (virtually identical in thickness & OD to stock Pantera except for the hat adapter needed). This was nearly 20 years ago. I ran the Porsche discs for several years using Pantera calipers, then upgraded the rear calipers to early Porsche 911S aluminum front 2-piston calipers with a simple strap adapter. These nice calipers have a little over twice the pad surface area of stock Pantera rear caliper pads. They are easily balanced to either the stock 4-piston Pantera caliper or Wilwood Superlite 2's, using a manual adjustable proportioning valve. With this final combo plus the stock non-adjustable proprtioning valve AND the problematic brake warning light/shuttle valve gone, I'm able to lock up 245-50 fronts OR 295-50 rears in a full panic stop. The thing truely has super-brakes.

Jack's Rules of Thumb on Brakes:
1)- If in a full-panic stop on clean dry pavement, you CANNOT lock up any wheel, you need bigger or improved brakes.
2)- If you CAN lock up a wheel, you need more tire to fully use the brakes you already have.
3)- Once #2 is achieved, you then continue increasing the tire patch size and the brake performance, correctly balancing each incremental change with a manual proportioning valve, until either you run out of money or need tires too wide to fit under the fenders.

A final warning: fooling around with brakes on a street car is serious business, more so than for racing. Some enthusiasts who exceeded their skill-level with brake swaps have wound up under a semi-trailer. If you have ANY doubts as to what to do here or how to do it, the vendors all have fully-sorted brake upgrade kits, with copious instructions. They are not that expensive, either. I recommend them compared to some of the scary home-grown conversions I've seen.

First, I thank EVERYONE for their input. It is much appreciated.
As far as "big brakes" goes, cautions understood. I would also add that the big rotors need to be indexed, and a micro cut put on the rotors on the car to minimize vibration, because of the mass of the rotor.
The 1.25" thick rotor was used, yes, as far as I know for the heat build up reduction.
Do I need 500hp, big brakes, a Penthouse Pet of the Year? Good question. "We" all create our own problems, don't "we".

This year at Virginia International Raceway at the SAAC Convention #36, I saw the Trans-Am Mustangs go through four sets of pads and rotors in "Practice" before the race. That says a lot. Mostly, I'm glad it wasn't me?

The front caliper weights, although part of the total equation, seem to be the minor part. The major one is, what to do with the rotor?

Looking at the rear, the first thing noticed was the lack of clearence to the upright. Noted BossWrench...I see it.

It may be the Wilewood calipers are the best rear solution. Let me just say that I don't like the overall sizing of the fasteners and am concerned that the "adapters" for the calipers are going to be the weak link, or more concerning, the "fuse able link". Especially with the additional torsional stresses applied to them with this level of braking. Particularly in the front.

No question on a proportioning valve. Absolutely necessary.

Bosswrech. Do you know what calipers were used with the 1.25 front rotors at LeMans?
Looking at the front setup (and having the parts here), it does look like the Trans-Am Mustang caliper adapter will work on the front of the P car if the existing caliper mounts on the bolt on rack adapter is machined off.

In 1972 if I was involved with any of the Ford teams and was sent over to Detomaso, that is the way I would go, i.e., and use the Lincoln calipers, which were already extensively race proven, plentiful, and relatively cheap.

The rear? Well that's another story as we already know but that same Tbird rotor does fit up back there. The question would be what calipers to use.

You could go with something like the Boss 302 stage III set up with front calipers mounted to an adapter with no parking brakes? But I think I am guessing here.

Holman-Moody was involved in Pantera racing back then in Europe at Fords request...or maybe that was at their insistence?

There is definitely an American influence or involvement in finding race solutions out of the existing Ford inventory of production parts.

quote:

It may be the Wilewood calipers are the best rear solution. Let me just say that I don't like the overall sizing of the fasteners and am concerned that the "adapters" for the calipers are going to be the weak link, or more concerning, the "fuse able link". Especially with the additional torsional stresses applied to them with this level of braking. Particularly in the front.

If you are interested in doing Wilwood calipers on a stock rotor, we can supply you with 2 Wilwood 4 Piston Calipers, 4 Grade 12.9 steel Bolts for mounting the bracket, and 4 Grade 8 steel bolts for mounting the caliper.

You don't have to worry about the bracket being the weakest link. It is made out of 1/2 Steel and the stresses are not perpendicular to the bracket. The stresses are in the same direction as the rotor. I agree, the weakest point would be the smaller mounting bolts that the Pantera has on a stock upright. That's why we upgraded to the 12.9 strength bolt.

Here's a link to some info on our Rear Brake Upgrade kit.
http://blog.saccrestorations.n...r-brake-upgrade-kit/

I doubt that I am staying with the stock rotors. For the intended use of this car I can live with the 1.25 rotors. If they are to big of a PITA I can always go back to stock.

The difference to me of 1.1" or 1.24" is insignificant at this point. I weighed both rotors and for some reason the 1.1" thick is 2 pounds heavier then the 1.24"

What does your rear kit do for a parking brake? I see no mention of it.

quote:

What does your rear kit do for a parking brake? I see no mention of it.

1.25 is way overkill for a street car that will see occasional track use. The kit Chris mentioned to you was for using a stock rotor.

We also have a 6 piston setup that uses 1.1 thick rotors. We use the stock Caliper for the parking brake to save on cost.

Parking brakes are a problem, as there is not much available.
I fitted Wilwood parking brake calipers & I have to say they are SHIT.
Absolutly useless, even when tripling the leverage applied to them.
Brake pad area is no larger than a kids go kart caliper.
And that is where the problem is with the small number of aftermarket parking brake calipers available.
They all have tiny brake pads.

So my hand brake is around 30% effective at best.
I have a pair of late model Mini, (BMW) parking brake calipers that I will install sometime in the future to solve the problem.

regards,
Tony.