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Like you all have experienced, you are working on a specific project and the door panel is off, or the seat is out… you know there is something else that is staring you in the face.. 😳 it’s asking for your attention!  So suck it up and do it… I suck a lot up… today I posted finishing the fresh air intake for the cabin and looking at the post it seems like … well, he puts a hose on today.. but as a working day goes, you come across a lot of things that 😳🤓🥹🥸🫣 look at you and ask to be fixed… some minor, some ugly and some x-file stuff that some alien built….

This thread is mainly for me to keep track of things I did and for your entertainment or for you to check next time you’re in that area…

Door panels off.. we are redoing the 50 year old interior, we’ll hand it to the upholstery guy with some instructions!  oh my… look at the bottom of the doors.. there is a lot of things, metal(bolts,washers, a small pin?), leaves, debris, blocking the drain holes… clean that out.. bolts… hmm I’m sure they had a home and so did the washers - you see where this goes… we ended up taking the window regulators out left and right, opening both gear drives and I found to my delight that it had already bronze gears in it.. solid with hard baked Brown grease … you know what to do.. cleaning regulations, lubricanting everything and put it back together, finding the washers were spacers to make it run smoothly…

what’s that.. pin… broken spring from the drivers door handle… take the handle out… and the passenger as well..

never tried the key… hmm doesn’t work, not left not right BUT fits the rear lid👍

back to driver door handle… plastic bucket is cracked too.. finding a used spring…. to get it : the pinhead, carefully drilling the head off and carefully driving it down… Getting stuck rust , cutting a bit off driving it backwards, cut again, tapp tap it’s out..  I got a spring.. new bucket came with pin and C-clips..

same again

cleaning the used spring.. ent-rust it , paint black..  well, still no key… I know a guy… he did the ignition lock on my Jensen Interceptor… old guy… on my way home I see him in his little locksmith shed next to .. Lowe’s..

tell him what I got… he’s looking around and after 5 minutes he shows up with 6 keys… says Fiat on them… smile…

the old man says… you know, I had a DeTomaso 40 years ago… got stolen…

yahh a silver Mangusta… 1982 it got stolen… still got the keys and the title and a ticket…IMG_1277

VIN 8MA822

I have to laugh right now where this is going…

anyway, he made me the key...driverside



More to Come



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Last edited by LeMans850i
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I hear you brother! My CNC slave cylinder, which saw one summer of use 22 years ago, sprung a leak the other day. It was a long throw version along with the matching master cylinder. Despite my best efforts, (probably clumsy) I never did get it to go into reverse and first without a little grind. I called Ron Mccall, who asked what kind of clutch it was. I said I had no idea….

I now have an appointment with Ron and have a new everything on order. I’ll have him safety wire it as well. The leak wasn’t THAT bad…

Along the lines of doing it once, correctly and forever, does anyone have any thoughts on a concentric - Tilton or otherwise - throw out bearing/?

Rather than rebuild the original and cracked door handle, get a set of IPSCO door handles.  They're beautiful, like jewelry.

https://ipsco.org/Pantera_file...20door%20handles.htm

But, if you're going to rebuild yours anyway, you might want to replace the worn, crazed or pitted chrome pulls with polished stainless pulls.  I may have a set available because I was planning to rebuild my door handles when I discovered both plastic cups were faded, one was cracked, and the other door handle had something else inside broken.

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Last edited by garth66
@garth66 posted:

Rather than rebuild the original and cracked door handle, get a set of IPSCO door handles.  They're beautiful, like jewelry.

https://ipsco.org/Pantera_file...20door%20handles.htm

But, if you're going to rebuild yours anyway, you might want to replace the worn, crazed or pitted chrome pulls with polished stainless pulls.  I may have a set available because I was planning to rebuild my door handles when I discovered both plastic cups were faded, one was cracked, and the other door handle had something else inside broken.

Very nice jewelry… but I keep my patina on purpose.. it’s 50 years old and it will be very good mechanically but no beauty queen… 👍.  To really see what my car is you need to dig in.. otherwise it’s just another yellow Pantera..

I saw the handles at the PIM show and I definitely noticed them.. clean straight cut..  very nice!!! I even ask the owner of the car about them…

Last edited by LeMans850i

Ed, I've been running a concentric throwout system for the last 25 yrs. I adapted a Tilton racing unit to the ZF because no one sold such a thing back then. Two common fail-spots: when the mfg says 'establish 0.060" of clutch to throwout free play,' BELIEVE IT! The whole rig uses a single square quad-ring to seal. It seals on the OD of the cylinder bore AND simultaneously on the internal piston ID, and works only in-and-out.

What happens is, guys skimp or error on setting the required free play. When the engine & bellhousing are hot from 15+ minutes of driving, the free play closes up considerably. If it disappears altogether, the concentric piston bottoms and begins spinning with the input shaft. The quad ring will fail in 50 miles if it starts spinning. They are reportedly difficult to replace (I've not had to).

D Quella used to sell such a rig (not a Tilton) and reportedly had massive warranty problems, mostly because of inadequate free play during home installation, I think. Dunno where his system was sourced from.

The second problem is obvious: if ANYTHING goes wrong, the ZF must come out to fix it.

Advantages:

1)- the rig is 12 lbs lighter than stock- you don't need the stock slave or its bracket, nor the cross shaft in the bell housing, its bearings/ bushings, or the cast iron release fork. It all goes on a shelf.

2)- With a std bore clutch master, the concentric throwout will stroke in/out around 0.090"! So one has more than enough in hand for large amounts of free play, and it's self adjusting once set up properly. This is good for saving the usual ZF synchro wear due to stock clutch drag. Its also easier to push in & out: Judy (5'2" & 118 lbs) had no problem street driving it 500 miles to 'Vegas.

My rig adjusts by threading in & out on a special ZF nose piece w/ a stock nose seal. The bleed hose extends out one of the ZF cross-shaft holes while the pressure hose goes in the other. Quella's adjusts by a stack of shims on (I think) a stock ZF nose piece. Both systems work fine. Good luck-

Lousbby- Great to hear you succeeded. I just had a back “repair” that prevents lifting, twisting or bending  for 6-8 weeks,,and I really want to drive the car at that time, so off to McCall it goes,  and I figure I’d just let him use whatever he wants, He suggested a complete clutch kit from Quella, and as I remember, master and slaves from Wilkinson. Will check my notes.

.

Here something unexpected:

I was going to replace the speedo cable on my car and I undid the zip ties of the new cable… unrolled it and laid it on the floor to relax….
as any Young at heart person would do I wanted to Twiddle the cable between my fingers… and to my absolute astonishment it didn’t want to turn…. WTF… 😳 Now i tried it from the other side - same result!!!

it took a  vice-like grip of my fingers to slightly turn the inside cable while holding the outside!! That can’t be right!!!  I pulled the cable out of the shielding and I found that to was packed…. I mean really really packed with graphite grease!!  I’ve wiped the cable off and stuck it back in… slightly better… Pulled it out again wiped more grease off and repeated the procedure five more times…. Now it’s  like a normal easy turning but still well lubricated speedo cable! I did not know that such a thing is possible (or how they got the grease like that in there) but here I am with blobs of grease coming out of this 6 foot cable that would have caused trouble for sure….

there is a thing as to much lube…. 🫣

Last edited by LeMans850i

Working on the wiring inside the cab I reroute and delete and shorten and lengthen quite a few wires!

I noticed on the parking break switch that there are three terminals, two terminals make contact when the handbrake is down and one contact makes ground over there parking brake switch… This is the contact that brake light on… Does anybody know what the other two connections do.. ? One was a single black wire and the other was 2 yellow wires crimped in one connector!

Installed new mechanical fuel pump, (substitute the bolts with studs) ! Also run wires for electric fuel pump ( just for priming / hot start / vapor lock) and fuel pressure sender and temperature sender for cooling fans. Installed fuel filter, working on fuel pump mount! New fuel hose tank to filter… going to be new all the way to carburetor..

Last edited by LeMans850i

When I started this thread , I didn’t know how really really true the title Would hold up!
I usually try to make sure I’m not backing myself into a corner… So in case of the electric part I made plenty of pictures (some got lost when my phone died) but the majority is there… put stuff back together the way it  was… Big mistake!!

I am in reach of firing up the car (and put in the interior and drive off into the sunset)  IF I can get the electric to work… There were a few Things that didn’t work when  I bought the car, but as I an trying to Get everything to work I’ll find more and more things wrong!(if you leave the ignition on for a while, or you turn the instrument lighting up , Or the headlight motor doesn’t wanna shut off…)

The hazard switch wiring in the back was not even remotely what it’s supposed to be and Therefore responsible for a lot of issues - obviously..

also, the back up lighting from the gauges, the headlight switch, cut wires, Crappy fixes…

The stuff I did new,  regarding wiring,  is not even hooked up! At least I can not  blame myself for blowing fuses!

extremely mega enormously frustrating!

I can build things, wiring a whole airplane from scratch… but this is getting down to my bloody bones… to find all those electrical screw ups…. Stuff build to work for one minute and then you better have it turned off again!
I am backed up in the corner, and I try to find a game plan….
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@rocky .. I rather do a pedal box overhaul!!!

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Last edited by LeMans850i

I like the "I can build things, wiring a whole airplane from scratch… but this is getting down to my bloody bones… to find all those electrical screw ups…. Stuff build to work for one minute and then you better have it turned off again!"

Welcome to our world! We do these electrical messes on a daily basis. In the early years all we ever did was water pumps, fuel pumps, brake pads, belts, hoses, simple stuff. Now-a-days...electrical messes one after another, EVERY car has some electrical mess here or there. But...electrical work is clean, it's easy, and it's thinking work. We'd rather do electrical than change pistons and cranks!

We have a car here now that the last owner cut all the wiring out with a hack saw for restoration. then lost it. Bought a 'painless wiring system' online. Nothing matches anything just bundle of #22 wires. For example, the instructions say the backup lights work off the cruise control box! What a joke. AND no cruise control box is in the kit! lol. That's nothing to us. We do them for breakfast lunch and dinner.

If you're backed into a corner we love electrical & Pantera is a simple car to wire. Unless you're not of the mind to do it, it can be overwhelming. But when you do Pantera 24-7-365 it's a piece of cake because we know these cars. Send the car down if you're at the end of your rope. Wiring is no big deal. Pantera Miami.

It’s just exhausting to trace ALL the little stupid things…  just a sampling:

the spring holding the backup light bulb touching the center lead of the socket!

wire for the brake light cut in the harness footwell/“firewall corner and then nicely taped the harness

headlight relay minor corrosion on one contact (passed 5V)

Original AND New headlight switch faulty

hazard switch incorrect connected

head light switch incorrect connected

Center console instrument lighting incorrect connected

A/c switch partial no contact

door interior lights switches not connected, no wires

turn signal stock switches corroded

and so on and on….

Now all the things you just read are the solutions to a problem or the problem itself but I get

fuse # 4 blows sometimes and right side rear lights not working and no brake lights at all and hazard when turned on stuck in on and light switch pink wire is getting warm and no horn and lights only open

all that in one go….!!! And I ask myself: where is the problem… and that is where I went wrong 😑 the question I should have asked myself should have been - how many problems are there‼️

That’s a lot of neglect and / or neanderthal electricians at work for a long time on one car!  I’m having lunch with my multimeter and a 10 foot wire..

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all the wiring I did for my additional stuff is not hooked up … just run the wires but not connected to power:

Powersteering, electric fuel pump, second headlights, Fuel pressure gauge, ignition switch, starter switch, interior fan, heater hose valve,voltmeter , clock… all that will get there own fuse / relay panel!

when I’m done with this car I know pretty much every nut, bolt , bushing , cable, wire, bulb, connector, hose, tube, hydraulic cylinder, bearing, ball joint, spacer and so on by their first name!! I touched them all!🖕

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Last edited by LeMans850i
@rocky posted:

I’ve got a big 200 amp knife switch in my storage unit.

It would look good on your center console, and you can turn all that stuff on with one switch action!

I will loan it to you – I haven’t used it in 18 years, but you never know when I might need it!

😎

Funny you said that… I started mounting a battery disconnect switch in the cabin today… 1/4 turn disconnect… center console footwell passenger…

I’m  sick of the little green knob at the battery that when you unscrew may or may not disconnect! (Aside it takes time to get out and do it)IMG_1728

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Last edited by LeMans850i

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