Vintage racing brakes

Hi guys,

I wanted to go further on @panteradoug idea to fit Rotors and Calipers from '67 Ford Thunderbird. Thanks to him for first infos on this because Vented Rotors fit on the hub and calipers just need a wedge/spacer to fit correctly.

I have 10x15 on front and the wheel doesn't touch the caliper.

I'm glad that it worked out for you. It was an inexpensive change originally.

Original calipers are harder to find but reproductuons are available as are rotors.

The spacer/adapter is pretty simple and straight forward.

I don't know if the set up will fit with 7 or 8 inch wheels though but I think it should with a 8 inch Campi.

The inside diameter of all the Campi wheels is the same.

I've seen this ised on three US races Panteras. I doubt the Euro guys would run anything but Girlings.

A few notes that I forgot on previous posts. First, the pure-racing GR-4 & GT-4 cars used 1.25" thick one-piece rotors with aluminum  4-piston Girlings, and the racing rear calipers did not use e-brakes so bosses were not included on those caliper castings. There was no e-brake mount in the cabin, either and in fact the whole body was full of preformed sheet steel parts modified from stock stampings with large perforations added. They were done before the car was welded together- to make an accurate repo', you'd have to disassemble the car.

I think the DeTomaso Race Shop used seam-welding in many areas rather than production spot-welding, for more chassis stiffness. There was also no heater box/AC and the welded heater/AC mount brackets under the dash were never done on racers. The tabs for the lower front a-arm mounts were lowered by about 0.300" from factory and the entire racer used NO rubber in the suspension at all. There were many, many little tweeks on the GR-4s that were not found on Gr-3 or other production based Panteras. I once wrote an illustrated article for POCA based on Guy Trigaux and Les Gray's real GR-4s, that showed how one could tell a real Gr-4 from a clone, or as they now say- a 'tribute' car.   

The Gr-3 production racers used iron 3-piston Girling calipers front and rear, with stock pair-of-pliers e-brakes. The uprights used very wide straight roller bearings at the inboard position.  DeTomaso used to sell a complete kit of Gr-3 brakes and that's what I installed on one owner's car in the early '90s. When I say 'complete' I mean it: Everything including the front & rear uprights, bearings & spindles were included. Even dash-3 Aeroquip brake hoses and brake pads were in the kit!  Everything cleared 8" & 10" Campagnolo wheels. Everything fit so it took me all day to mount & bleed the kit and rough-align the wheels. The next day he drove to an alignment shop. That car still exists in N CA- the owner is a POCA member.

The street based GT5/GT5-s brakes in the mid '80s were essentially the same as the early '70s Gr-3 brakes: all-iron 3-piston calipers and 1.25" wide 1-piece rotors. GT5 rears were from a Rolls-Royce, and the Rolls e-brake calipers were modified to clear slightly larger OD rear rotors used on DeTomasos (maybe front rotors? Dunno.) There's a long cross-bolt that passes very close to the rear of the GT-5 rotor. DeTomaso cold-bent a curve into that bolt for clearance. And being a hardened bolt, a number of them cracked in service. This modified bolt was frequently replaced on street GT-5/5s cars. I think someone began making an annealed version of the metric bolt that didn't crack.

As far as I know from the FIA Homologation papers, ONLY Girling calipers (aluminum or iron depending on class) were legal for International racing classes through the '70s. Later, after Panteras were obsolete, the door for brakes and other stuff was thrown wide open. The '91 ADA Pantera run at the last LeMans used a Hewland transaxle from one of Gurney's IMSA racers, and a Porsche suspension! If you're really serious about vintage-racing a modified Pantera and winning, check the current rules for the group you'll be dealing with. It likely will not look much like a classic Pantera! Not going that far, contact Anders Hellburg in Sweden on his Pantera Gr-3 website <www.scuderiadetomaso.se> He is still active (note time zone). I got an e-mail from Anders only a few days ago.

early Gr3 use the same small calipers as the normal Pantera's

There is a "classic brake shop" in LA that had the calipers cast up in aluminum.

I didn't get there fast enough to get a set. Apparently they only tried an initial set of 50 or so and had problems with the foundry casts as porous?

I am also told that Ford did cast some up as SK parts and tested them by passing them out to racers for free to try. That is or was how Ford Engineering worked then. For whatever reason the part was not approved to go further into production.

I can tell you that side by side the 4 piston Ford caliper is VERY similar to the Gurling in many respects but Ford eventually abandoned the design in favor of one large piston that went into production in the '68 model year.

The T-bird 4 piston calipers had the tendency of freezing up one or more of the pistons in daily useage. So the design was probaly one of those 51% problem, 49% no problem parts that looked for a better, and cheaper design for production cars.

It can be pointed out that an aluminum caliper saves unsprung weight but there is little you can do to reduce the added mass of a 12 inch by 1.25" rotor.

In my own useage of both the 67 t-bird calipeer, the 68 Mustang caliper and the Pantera Girling caliper, the Girlings freeze up more then the others do.

The T-bird brakes are a very good solution to more braking in the front with minimal switch over issues.  The "issues" being fairly simple to fix even for the do-it-yourself doer. Although not everyone has a mill in the basement to carve out such beautiful adapters like those Dudejack? Very nice.