Pantera 06927

Seeing as how you're out at the end of the world, I'll try to compile the geometry articles via pdf & e-mail the collection to your website e-mail address.
As far as driving in monsoon conditions, giant tires hydroplane pretty easily even when the geometry is correct. Be careful!
On suspension springs: our '72 Pantera L has been the subject of a 20-year project to improve its handling and lighten it up a bit. The car originally weighed 3250 lbs with 1/2 tank of gas. Today, it weighs 2690 lbs, still with the same visual appearance but 500 lbs lighter. Once I get my aluminum block engine finished, along with a fiberglas decklid, we will be yet another 100 lbs or so lighter, still with A/C, heater, mounted wipers and a CD/AM-FM stereo radio. At that weight, I have good luck using 250-lb front springs with 300-lb rears. Your car being a conversion, I really have no idea what its weight might be, but a guess is 3200 lbs ready to drive.
Without having driven your car, I personally feel your springs are too stiff for touring use; maybe OK for road racing but not street driving on bumpy roads. Stock springs were 250 lbs front & 355 lbs rear, according to Ted Mitchell's comprehensive Pantera geometry website
My Koni gas shocks are the high pressure type (around 250 psi internal) and that adds another 40-some lbs of spring pressure from each shock- adds to the total spring load. So our lightweight Pantera runs a total 290-lb spring load in front & 340-lbs in the rear. Another road race & street Pantera (belonging to a parts vendor but not lightened) runs similar weight springs and finds they work well overall. As a guess, your car should react well to around 350-lb fronts & 450-lb rear springs. Fortunately, aftermarket springs are cheap at $50 or so apiece, so experimenting is not a bank-breaker. Anti-sway bar sizes should not affect this although they WILL help cornering.

Thanks Jack.

Do you think it's worth the gamble of having springs made locally or just get them from a US vendor and have Mike send them out. Pretty damn heavy to ship four springs.

We have spring manufacturers but I'd need to know free length of the spring, ID and OD.

I'm with you, the roads here are crap, I don't want a track car but a nice driving car and I think 100lbs lighter in the springs on each corner should fix it up a bit.

Did GT5 cars have different control arms at the front to push the wheels out further? I would have expected the Pantera East wheels to have fitted well but even the 11" fronts were 30+ mm inside the front flares.

I'll pull off a front wheel tomorrow and measure the back spacing, and at that point at least I'll have some numbers to compare.

Robert,

The relay looking thing with red button is a starter override switch.

For visuals and ID on stuff Panteras by Wilkinson's Catalog is always a good resource.

The GT5 and wide body cars use the same a-arms as the narrow bodies. I recommend the modification that widens the ball joint area to provide more caster as wide body cars track terribly. They benefit from up to 7 degress of caster (stock is about 2.5 degrees). The stock GT5 handling is terrible because the wheels were simply pushed outward over the center of the wheel.

Most issues are with aftermarket wheels not having the correct backspacing. Good idea to measure and we can compare, stock 10" and 13"wide campi wheels are 4.625" front and 4.75" rear (to inside edge of tire bead).

Shock springs should be pretty easy to come by, what shocks do you have? For street wide body I'd probably start with 350 or 375 lb fronts and 450 lb rears.... even on Aussie roads.

That reminds me of my first summer when we lived in Australia; we drove from Newcastle to Surfers Paradise for Christmas on the recommendation of a local who said just take the Freeway.... he forgot to mention the freeway was a 2 lane highway and 450 miles took 13 hrs!

Summer is upon you, so my recommendation is drive it and worry about the rust come winter. I know so many people that get deep into restoration and forget what it's like to drive....

Julian

Thanks Julian.

How des a starter over ride work. There are three wire connectors on it, but only one wire connected. Can I piss it off?

I have the Johnny Woods modification done and I'm currently running 4'30" of castor.

I have Alden Eagle shckers, brand new rebuilt by the factory to a road/race spec as I told them at the time that Aussie roads were crap and what springs the car had under it.

So far I've wire brushed all the surface rust, put a coat of quality rust converter on it, and put the carpet back in the front trunk.

As you say, it can wait!!

i think that starter over ride is part of the switch in the seltbelt. which I presume is not there anymore.
I happened to 'loose' mine when I redid the front trunk.

Robert,

If you haven't already done so, go to Mike Dailey's Pantera Place and download a copy of all the electrical diagrams. There is one for the starter override circuit and as Paul says it is part of the seat belt and parking brake circuit. Most cars I know don't have any of that remaining.

http://www.panteraplace.com/page107.htm

I assume the Aldan's are true Aldans with a std 2.5" dia. spring and not the ones Hall sold with 4.5" dia.? Spring length should be 10" or 12" and easily measured once removed. Sourcing a spring the correct length and required rating shoudl not be difficult.

If the shocks are the Hall ones, then you can convert them to std 2.5" dia. springs, but will require new locators/perches.

Julian

Hi guys, my fantastic Fluidyne radiator sprung a leak today so whilst pulling that out, I also got a front wheel off.

The total width of the rim is 303mm so it's basically exactly 12" overall. Hence it's an 11" wheel measured to the bead edge.

Anyway 303 divided by 2 gives me exact centre of wheel so 151.mm is centre line.

From total outside edge at the rear to the mounting flange face my wheels are 163mm so I have a positive backspacing of just 11.5mm!

I also measured the spacers that I'm running to push the wheels out properly into the wheel arches and they are 35mm.

Given the current combination, the centre of my wheel is positioned 46.5mm outboard of the wheel mounting flange face with the spacer in place and 11.5mm outboard of the flange face with no spacer.

How does this compare to you other blokes running big wheels up front?

Whilst I was about it I whipped the rear off too.

Total rim width 356mm. Centre line 178mm. Distance from rear edge of rim to mounting flange face 138mm

This gives a +40mm rear offset. Effectively, the wheel sits 40mm plus half the wheel width towards the outside of the car.