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Hi all - My car is currently on a rotisserie. I'm in the process of stripping all paint and undercoating from the bottom side of the car. After inspecting for and replacing any rust, I do some seam welding, add extra spot welds and just basically make sure everything is nice and strong before I go back and coat it all with "Zero Rust".

Last night I moved up to the Steering rack mount. After stripping, everything looks nice and solid. I plan to add spots welds along the bottom of the front trunk area were the mount attaches to the sheet metal.

My question is this...Has anyone done any modifications to the actual mount? Does it need to be strengthened? Or is just adding some extra welding enough.

I did find two websites that discuss modifications to this area.

Pantera Place

RC-Tech

Both are great modifications. However, neither modification changes anything on the actual mount. It appears that both add extra bracing to the area which is something I'll probably look at doing as well.

Another thing to consider is that my car is probably going to live most of it's life on the street.

Any feedback before I button this area up would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Chance Dorsey
Austin, TX
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This is what I created for my Pantera rack.
Replaced the original pressed steel mount, which to me looked a little feeble.
This shows the new bracket along with the rack mounts, (silver).
Made from two 1", (25.4mm) diameter tubes & 1/4" (6mm) thick plates either end which bolt though the chassis plate work, same area as the original.
The rack mounts have 10mm spacers which helps reduce bump steer.

regards,
Tony.

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  • rack_brace
Hi, Chance! There was a stock steel'rack-brace' developed by Bill Stroppe for U.S-imported Panteras, that bolts between the rack & the right lower subframe. Is that what you meant? Stroppe was proud of that little brace, saying it stiffened up the handling noticably. His guys installed it on all the impoirts they could find in '71-up. It was factory-stock after mid-'72.
I've never heard of a rack mount failing, even on cars that had terminal high speed impacts with really solid parts of the world. If you use the factory bump-steer spacers (mid-'73 & up), the rack does need four slightly longer mounting bolts to compensate for the extra thickness of the spacers, but of those cars that use stock length bolts & spacers, I've not heard anything bad, either.
I did sort-of brace the lower subframe below the rack area with an aluminum angle-crossmember that doubles as a dropped-battery platform. No battery box needed this way.
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