Rip Van Winkle

This would be a good starting point http://www.panteraplace.com/page78.htm

Scott,

Welcome! Where are you located? If you are near any of us, you've got willing hands. You also want to join POCA, and join the detomaso forum at www.realbig.com/detomaso. The archives for this bulletin board and the forum are filled with all the answers to the questions you don't yet know you have :-) They are searchable at the forum site, too.

The car won't move because the calipers have no doubt locked themselves in place to the rotors. But this is just the start of your tasks. Drop me a note with your phone number (you can get my email address from the top of this response) and let's get that car back on the road!

Larry Finch

[This message has been edited by LF - Teach Peace (edited 08-07-2003).]

[This message has been edited by LF - Teach Peace (edited 08-07-2003).]

For all such resurrections, first change all the rubber hoses in the entire car: water, heater (there are two under the dash) and fuel. If finances permit, change the rubber brake hoses to braided ss and bleed the old fluid out of both brake & clutch masters. Frozen calipers can be disassembled in your garage, the ss pistons scotch-brited clean of varnish and reassembled at no charge but lots of dirty work. Finally, remove the fuses one at a time and spray the clips with TV Contact Cleaner from Raio Shack. This will probably get you a car that is driveable, in order to find any other problems of a more serious nature- such as corroded or plugged gas tank, or a defective transaxle. There are lots of possible improvements you can make to heighten your cars reliability and driving pleasure.Good luck & welcome to the group.

In addition to the above mentioned items needing attention, please be aware that there is a fire danger on many a Pantera. When you are ready to start the beast, let your nose be acutely aware of any smell of gasoline. Gaskets in the carburetor could have cracked with age and leak gasoline onto the manifold. The vent hose to the gas tank could have come loose or cracked open and may leak gasoline onto the headers. Please keep a fire extinguisher handy in the event of a fire, so as to minimize risk to life and damage to property, such as your prized Pantera. Best to do this outside the garage and with less than a full tank of gas. Make sure the fuel filter is on the low pressure side of the fuel pump, and is freshly changed. If the carb is recently rebuilt, make sure the screws to the floats are very snug, you can often tighten them another 1/4 to 1/2 turn from what the carb rebuilder snugs them up to. The carb is under pressure, in accordance with the fuel pressure/flow rate of the fuel pump. Tighten all hose clamps you can possibly see.
Replace the thermostat, they will freeze up with age, and are only $3. Double hose clamp all the rubber to metal water tubes, and this is advice not specific to Panteras, do this with all your vehicles, and you won't see that white or green stain on the low or high pressure side of the water pump. On any vehicle, the water is under pressure, and this is hot, so it expands both rubber and metal, but at different rates, so do the double hose clamp thing, I think this is why they left enough room to put 3 hose clamps on these connectors as they designed them anyway. The factory race machines have huge, wide hose clamps, so we should do the cheap thing & do hose clamps X 2.
Flush the radiator. Do this until the water runs clear. I suggest testing the radiator fluid to determine the specific gravity, before flushing it. This will tell you whether there was enough anti-freeze in the system. This is important because it will be an indicator whether there was sufficient anti-freeze/ANTI-CORROSION INHIBITOR in the cooling system to begin with. An indicator of whether there is rust in (1) the engine block (2) the radiator, (3) U get the idea...
We really enjoy helping our fellow Pantera Addicts out, so make sure you are not shy, and get back to us with any questions or concerns you may have. We're probably gonna jump all over each other trying to be the first to answer any questions you may have.

I sure hope they DID NOT leave the battery in your car for all these twenty years. There might be a hole there, if they did. Do NOT even try to start the engine, until all the fluids are fresh and clean. I.E. Coolant, Oil and Filter. And the Spark Plugs, Cap and Rotor (just a general 100% tune-up). And don't forget, the ZF Transaxle will need an oil change, also. Best Of luck to you! Have fun with it! And welcome to the club! Regards, Marlin.