ZF rebuilder near Detroit??

quote:

Originally posted by marauder64:
While doing so are there other upgrade actions besides the safety wiring that I should consider having done?

I would recommend putting in the .62 5th gear. It drops about 400 RPM at 80 MPH. It really is a more proper gear for a torquey V8. Lloyd Butfoy at RBT has them.

There are few ZF rebuilders ANYWHERE in the world, much less close by you. RBT Transmissions near Los Angeles has the license to rebuild them, owns all the factory tools and jigs, plus most of the new and NOS parts and is your best bet to have it done right. All the gears and shafts are special, are unavailable from anyone else new and vary slightly between the various series produced 1965-1995. This is his only job, so Lloyd charges EVERYONE retail price for his parts and gaskets, so many casual ZF rebuilders scavenge parts from junked ZFs to find a better fitting (but still used) part than what's in the boxes they fix. All the seals and most but not all the bearings are standard, though.

Plus, this is a complicated assembly to work on and it weighs 155 lbs, so it normally takes two people (or an engine crane) just to wrestle one up on a sturdy benchtop. Before you send one off to be overhauled, get a price in writing (suggest you be sitting down at this time!), drain the lube and remove the bellhousing. Crate it VERY securely; insurance for replacement in case of loss or catastrophic shipping damage should be around $6000 or so. Good luck.

Dennis at Pantera Performance in Castle Rock, Colorado can also do a great job rebuilding these boxes. He has been doing them for YEARS and is a little bit closer. You may want to give him a call as well...

There are ZF rebuilders here and there. I have the east coast one about 20 minutes away from me, Clarkstown Gears, BUT Butfoy is the ONLY licensed re-builder of the Pantera unit and I believe the only source of parts for it? Everyone gets the Pantera ZF parts from him.

If he hasn't got them, you really are out of luck and need to buy another Pantera for it's transmission parts.

ZF sold all rights to this unit to him (or his father) years ago. His father was the Shelby mechanic that rebuilt them for the GT40 program when they were being raced.

I can tell you that they,Clarkstown Gear, rebuild for GM and the other CURRENT PRODUCTION ZF users and they have NEVER SEEN one of these Pantera units until I showed them mine.

The original synchros for instance he had re-manufactured in bronze. The original Pantera units are powerded iron. That is unique to the Pantera. Even the GT40 used different synchros.

Also consider that you normally aren't going to go through the effort of disassembling the unit just to do one synchro or one gear. I believe that 5th gear is part of the input shaft and in addition you need to change the gear on the counter cluster as well to do that? But I'd have to look at that first.

Bottom line, this isn't inexpensive to do at all.

I will say though that it was Loyd who encouraged me to do my own, with his parts of course.

I was afraid that there were unique special tools required for it.

I've done mostly Ford toploaders, but a few BW T10's and Doug Nash/Richmond 5 speeds.

Anyone who is conscienous and has rebuilt manual transmissions can do the ZF.

Hall was doing them at one time. Don't know if it was Procision Bob or Mike Cook doing them there.

Bob is Precision Proformance now. He can do it as well as Dennis (if they have the time). I don't know if Wilkinson himself does them or sends them out? You'd have to ask him.

If you wait for Lyod he has a waiting list of over 6 months.

It is going to take you a while to do yours anyway since first you need to disassemble it to find out what parts you need. It's always possible that there is a surprize in there just waiting for you.

As far as considering changing gear ratios, it depends on how you drive the car.

The last configuration of the US cars is the best compromise.

When Mike Cook put Halls burgandy express into the 9.0's at the drag strip, besides an A3 headed 357, all they did was change the ring and pinion to the 5.38 rear. They didn't touch the rest of the gear set. That means they left the puney 2.20 first gear alone.

That gave them a first gear torque factor of 11.86:1, which is what you need to make this combination run at it's potential, not the other way around.

Be realistic. Are you going to drive this car over 200 mph? I'm not.

Anyway, you could just find a local race transmission builder in the Detroit area. The ZF IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE AT ALL. I'll ask Jeff Burgy for you. He would probably know. Jeff worked for Ford Corporate and lived there most of his life.

Jim,

I am in Maryland and I own and operate a transmission repair business. I have ,personally,overhauled/modified over 50 ZF transaxles mostly from Panteras but also from GT40s,Kit cars,one from a Pagani Zonda(RBT6) and one from a BMW M1. I also,do all of the ZF work for Race Car Replicas in Detroit ( http://race-car-replicas.com/ 586-329-1573). You may be able to speak with FRan Hall (owner)about the possibility of shipping your trans to me along with some of theirs ? I have two ZFs in the shop at the moment that were brought to me by their owners from northwestern PA and Chicago.It is only about a 8 hr ride if you wanted to bring it to me and save yourself quite a bit in shipping.
Also,I can assure you that I do not "scavenge parts from junked ZFs to find a better fitting (but still used) part than what's in the boxes they fix". That remark seems totally absurd today because of the fact that the ZF transaxle is worth so much these days that the only ones that I have scrapped are totally destroyed or completely full of rust.I buy all of my gaskets /hard parts from LLoyd at RBT.

Please let me know if I can be of assistance.

Thanks,
Ron McCall
410-239-2291

Doug ....do you mean Rockland Standard Gear ?

Ron

So there you have it... There a plenty of qualified people that have worked on theses boxes for YEARS.

Sounds like Ron is your best bet and the closest.

To say that there is only ONE person in the world that can rebuild a ZF is absurd!!!!

If I was near the east coast, I would be going to Ron!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by accobra:
Doug ....do you mean Rockland Standard Gear ?

Ron

Are they in Clarkstown? It's been 4 years so I kinda shelved the entire thought of them in my memory.

They swore they knew all the ZF's but they couldn't even find reference to this one in the data they had.

A lot of people can rebuild these things BUT there is only one source of parts for them so best to make nice, nice with Lloyd to my way of thinking...and actually he talked me out of sending mine to him...he really didn't want to do it.

Might have been a two year wait then?

This was before the 6 speed was really available for sale.

Ron can have all of mine. Sorry I forgot that he did them...sorry Ron.

... yes they were in clarkstown ... moved northa bit ... but yes they are factory authorized ZF' dealers for new cars and trucks .. and yes RBT is the only one with parts ... but they can rebuild and service our ZF ... so saves the shipping and crating for us NE guys.

R

Les Gray's shop in Arizona rebuilt a ZF for my last Pantera about 12 years ago. I took it out of the car myself with the help of a friend( it is heavy) and shipped it to them. They did a super job at a reasonable cost and shipped it back within a month. I installed it back with a new clutch. A fairly simple job. I highly recommend them.

quote:

Originally posted by r mccall:
Jim,

I am in Maryland and I own and operate a transmission repair business. I have ,personally,overhauled/modified over 50 ZF transaxles mostly from Panteras but also from GT40s,Kit cars,one from a Pagani Zonda(RBT6) and one from a BMW M1. I also,do all of the ZF work for Race Car Replicas in Detroit ( http://race-car-replicas.com/ 586-329-1573). You may be able to speak with FRan Hall (owner)about the possibility of shipping your trans to me along with some of theirs ? I have two ZFs in the shop at the moment that were brought to me by their owners from northwestern PA and Chicago.It is only about a 8 hr ride if you wanted to bring it to me and save yourself quite a bit in shipping.

On first read of the thread Fran came to my mind too. I didn't know Ron was doing all RCR's transmission work, but Fran has an excellent reputation and if he puts his trust in Ron that would be enough recommendation for me.

I have found ZF shipping reasonable and always use one of the plastic tuff totes (total 200lbs ship weight). Shipping from Reno to Colorado was $175 and to Florida $300 recently. I'm guessing that if you figure the cost of gas plus your drive time shipping will be the best option.

Julian

Thanks to everyone so far that has replied to my post on getting my ZF gone through. Sounds like my best move so far would be to go to Ron out in Maryland. I will try to contact RCR about perhaps a piggyback on their shipping. PanteraDoug mentioned Jeff Burgy who I remember from my years at Ford. Best contact I could come up with for him was cobrajeff@comcast.net so I sent him a note and hopefully will hear from him too.

On updates during rebuild are there items I sould have done and is safety wiring the ring gear a proper move as I once heard mentioned?

As a side bar, during my days at Ford Experimental Engineering I recall one Saturday in 1975 when about a dozen new ZF's were being scrapped as the program was being closed out. They were being pushed off the second floor storage balcony into dumpsters by our mechanics. When the containers were getting full some would bounce out. It was funny back then, but extremely sad now!

Too big to fit into your lunch pail but think about the things you guys threw away...including the cars that went to the crusher?

Just saw this post. Someone you can also check is Bruce Sharp of Sharp's Supply in Mulliken, MI. When I was trying to trace the history of my car - Bruce had owned it about 22 years ago - Bruce had a couple of Panteras in for new clutches (I know, a far cry from ZF service). We talked a bit about Panteras and it turns out he's owned quite a few of them over the years - if you look at his website, the DeTomaso logo is there along with Ford/Mopar/GM/AMC - not something I've seen on the average Speed Shop homepage. Sharp's Supply

Anyway, Bruce may be able to point you to some nearby options - assuming he's had to have work done at some point on one or more of the cars he's owned.

Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress.

quote:

Originally posted by marauder64:


As a side bar, during my days at Ford Experimental Engineering I recall one Saturday in 1975 when about a dozen new ZF's were being scrapped as the program was being closed out. They were being pushed off the second floor storage balcony into dumpsters by our mechanics. When the containers were getting full some would bounce out. It was funny back then, but extremely sad now!

Sounds like what we did with the Boss9s here

Thanks everyone for the hints,leads,suggestions to date and to a recent poster #5754 for the Bruce sharp lead in Mich. I have a call in for Bruce as well Kirk evans in Perrysburg Ohio, they are the closest to me at this point. Does anyone know of Bruce's or Kirk's rebuild work as a reference? My other options are still lead by Ron in Maryland.

I was hoping to hear back from Jeff Burgy here in Detroit as well but haven't. I thing my E-mail address for him might be bad, does anyone have a good contact number or address on Jeff?
Thanks all!!!

Jim

Bruce Sharp did my ZF years ago (previous owner) and it still shifts perfectly. New R&P, synchros, etc..
Ron in Maryland will also do a quality job, without a doubt.
Will

Jim you can also talk to Kirk Evans at Amerisport, he is in Perrysburg, OH.
http://www.amerisportindustries.com/
Jeff