Pantera #4406

Rene,
First of all, welcome to the forum. You'll find lots of great infomation here.

I have 4403, it is also black and the tag says build code of 10/72. After some checking I found it was originally a blue color after a little sanding. The Marty report says it was built in 9/72 and was white. It cam into Baltimore, Maryland USA and went to Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. The Marty report is only as good as the data that Ford & Detomaso had provided.

I purchased mine in West Palm Beach Florida from the owner that had it since 1980. I have no more info than that. I do have a lot more rust than a California car. And the front fenders have been flared out to take a larger tire. It was running when I bought it but the rust in the tank cause problems.

Ken

Rene welcome,
post the vin and people will try to help. lots of good info ad people here.

Welcome!
If you got a VIN, maybe we can get some info inside the de tomaso registry provamo.

Thank you for the welcoming

The VIN is, as my psuedo indicates, THPNML04406, so it was manufactured in September 1972, the body service number is 50391 and it was released in October 1972.

It is not registered in the de tomaso registry provamo.

I have a photo where it has a Texas license plate but the title comes from Maryland.....

I've got 4460. Red. Sold new in a St.Louis, MO, sub. 09/72.
It had a Florida title on it when I bought it.

Things that I would call "problems" were because of lack of serious maintenance. An example would be the passenger floor pan was rusty because the heater hose was leaking and the guy had "Scotch tape" on it.

BS, like that was the problem.

Unfortunately that previous owner was not sterilized in time and was able to have children. They will no doubt add to spreading cultural misery to the rest of this planet?

With any luck, that effect will be minimized?

It is especially at the body level that mine has suffered it received a lot of small shocks on the two doors, the rear wings and a front wing, all repaired with mastic without having straightened before the sheet.
There is also some perforating rust at the rear of the roof and at the bottom of the doors


The underside of the car, the chassis, is healthy, no rust, with the exception of the two Rear Inner Wheelhouse Patch Panel which are well rotten and very badly repaired, they will be replaced.

The engine run well......at idle but I will completely rebuild it by increasing the power.

Probably the solution to the door "dings" which is the least traumatic is to just fill them with body filler? If you hammered them out, you still would need to use filler.

Every one of these cars has suffered or is suffering some sort of sheet metal issues. It is the nature of the way the car was manufactured.

Some are worse then others.


In my opinion, what you see in the rear of the car rust wise is a result of driving the car in the rain. It throws up a "rooster tail" of water that "pressurizes" water into areas it wasn't intended to go and in addition the original assembly used minimal drain holes.

There probably are cars that once delivered new, never spent any time in anything but desert conditions. Even with those, I wouldn't be shocked if there were indications of rust issues.

The entire body SHOULD have been submerged in an electrostatic primer like US Ford cars were or certain parts should have been galvanized before assembly. It wasn't.

This is just life with an Italian assembled sheet steel car.


It isn't JUST the Italians. '60s and early '70s Porsches are absolute rust buckets as well. They don't get better until at least the late '70s if not the mid '80s.

It isn't limited to Europe either. Japanese cars of that era are perhaps the absolute worst for rust and the US still struggles to a degree with the issue.

Why? I don't know. Certainly the euro engineers knew about it. The Corporate heads just didn't care apparently? Part of a designed obsolescence probably?

That attitude does seem to be improving substantially now.

I will certainly have it completely stripped in a chemical bath and then cataphoreze it, there is a German company that does that not far from home.

At the time, the engineers did not think there would be "crazy" who still want to drive these cars 45 years later. At the time it was not yet fashion collector cars.

quote:

There is also some perforating rust at the rear of the roof

This is another common location for rust on Panteras.

I've read the factory placed some sort of sound-deadening material in that area of the roof that sadly was prone to absorbing moisture. And then rust.

Suggest you pay close attention to that area. It may be wise to actually open it up to fully understand the full extent of the rust that is there.

As for chemical stripping. Main downside to that is the tendency for the process to leave residual stripper/moisture deep in the body seams and pinch welds. Which hides there for months, years and then works its way out and gives paint problems. Chemical stripping MUST be fully neutralized and baked dry to avoid future problems. Media blasting or old fashioned mechanical sanding down to metal avoids such problems.

Congratulations on your new ownership and best wishes on the restoration.

Larry

Yes, I know that the roof is a sore spot.
There have already been replaced sheet metal heaps but also holes stuffed with putty and I may replace the entire strip of metal at the back on a width of 6 or 7 " to well repair also inside.



For the chemical stripping this company makes a lot of vintage cars, it makes a protection by phosphation after stripping and it's it that does cataphoresis painting immediately after.

if you understand German:
http://www.carblast.de/entlack...hemisches-entlacken/

The disadvantage of media blasting and/or old fashioned mechanical sanding is that they do not go anywhere.

but before having it treated, I remove the maximum of paint by sanding to see and repair the maximum of defects:

Rene Hi

welcome..the Forum team is great!.Got help a lot!!!
Did go through a full restauration of 4907. NOT as cumbersum chasis wise as yours, but still very expensive.
I live in Stuttgart so close by. Happy to come by and chat..
Have a nice French friend "Pascal" who lives close to Saarbrücken/Bitsch (so a bit north) in France. We did buy vintage cars in the US. He did the Chemical approache on his E-Type Series 1 and I did go with the classical special grease wax approache. Well mine was not as work intensive as yours probably.
Send me a Personal Message will get you my dear French friend details & experience.

Matthias

René

It is exciting that another Pantera is being restored and rescued from deterioration. Bravo for that.

Welcome to the forums, you have my commitment that we are here to assist you.

Best Wishes!

Which supplier do you recommend for the purchase of body parts:
both DOOR SKIN
both INNER WHEELHOUSE PATCH PANEL

I found on the net HALL PANTERA, PRECISION PROFORMANCE and PANTERASBYWILKINSON but there are certainly others.

I would also like to replace the reinforcement inside the roof at the back which is completely rotten but I did not find the reference and supplier for this piece?

I think you are going to have to make that piece yourself?

My first choice for original sheet metal would be Hall Pantera.

He bought out much of what Ford had left when they discontinued the Pantera program.

I do know that he was fabricating some when he ran out of originals. I think the door skins were the first to run out?

Rene, when I stripped our paint, I used chemical "Aircraft Stripper" only up to 1/2" to the edge of all panels, then sanded the remainder off so the stripper could not worm around into panel seams. Best of both methods! Aircraft Stripper even (slowly) removes epoxy based body filler! That was 20 yrs ago and never a paint problem. Sand- or media-blasting heats up the metal on one side, which then buckles panels from uneven expansion. Then the media comes back out from hiding places during painting under air pressure to ruin the paint.

In the rear of the roof under the skin there is a foam strip that catches & holds moisture, as Larry said. The underside of all the body panels were NOT rust-proofed, so cutting that perforated area out may show other damage inside. The roof panel was seamed all around the drip rails and that may be the way moisture gets in there. Some owners cut the roof seams & drip rails away for a smoother look and if that appeals to you, this is the time to do so. Good luck!

Rene, welcome to the forum!

I think you should take out the rear quarter windows. You may find rust in there - I did.

The body is now completely bare and there is no rust towards the quarter window, but thanks for the advice