Heater control panel removal

The plastic trim piece on the outside has 4 pins on the back that attach it to the metal part behind the console. Two of the pins usually have small metal washers pushed onto the back side of the pins to keep them from pulling out. Once the plastic piece is removed (carefully prying with a small plastic tool) there are two Phillips screws that hold the metal housing to the dash. The housing removes from the rear . The levers are two pieces. You have to (again VERY carefully ) pry the one side up and over the raised bump on the metal part of the lever and pull straight out.


Ron

To follow onto this thread...

My heater VALVE is very stiff, and the heater control cable sheath(lowest lever) bends, vs. activating the lever on the valve.

My PO had a spring attempting to pull the lever on the heater valve, but it wasn't aligned with the arc of the valve lever, and I don't think it really helped much.

Two questions...

1. Did the original design really have a spring pulling the valve lever?

2. Any way to loosen up the valve mechanism? There's a flat slot in the center of the bottom of the valve, what does this do? I don't want to start a leak. Thanks.

Rocky

quote:

Any way to loosten up the valve mechanism?

http://panteraplace.com/page180.htm

Thanks, Scott.

Just what I was looking for.

Rocky

Got it. Thanks r mccall. Those two piece levers had me stumped.

I appreciate this thread. I finally got everything out of my interior yesterday so I can get to the re-wiring. Lots of stuff messed up. Not exactly sure what I'm going to do about some of it....but first thing is to the wiring!

Kermit

Words of wisdom from when these cars were new: no matter what you adjust or rebuild, the stock levers and bowden cables will NOT both completely shut off the hot water AND also open it fully. You can adjust for one or the other. The problem seems to lie in the length of the levers on the dash vs. the length of the heater valve lever being mismatched. The flexibility of the unshielded cables does not help. Later wide-body Panteras got vacuum actuated controls also used in the Maserati Biturbo, and that does seem to fix this li'l problem. Expensive but they do apparently retrofit. A couple of early Pantera use them.

Cosmetically speaking, I repainted the panel with Krylon Fusion semi black, then took a Metallic silver Sharpie and went over the wording. Not original chrome, but very good results.

As far as the levers, the bottom one does not want to go from Warm to Hot. It springs back. I'd guess OFF is not completely OFF also.

4280 has all metal levers , the lever that operates the heater valve has a second hole in it that is closer to the knob ie further from pivot point, into which i moved the cable to , this lenghtened the cable travel enough to open and close valve completely.