The Plan vs. Reality

I haven't really talked about what my plans are for this car so I guess I'll do that here:

 For now, I just want to get it on the road so I can enjoy it for a while.  I'm not performing any restoration at all, only repairs (I have another project that I've been restoring for several years now that is nearing completion and I don't want to start another restoration project).  Also, the car is in pretty good shape all things considered.  All the gauges work.  It is mostly original with only two or three changes from factory that I've been able to find.  It's had a really bad repaint at some point but the carburetor is the original Autolite 4300, which seems to be one of the first things to go on most other cars.

So for now, only repairs and cleaning.  No painting of parts while their off or anything like that.  So for this first year, she'll be survivor car (mostly).

Over the next couple of years though, I intend to upgrade the brakes, wheels/tires, AC, exhaust, engine, etc.  Automotive technology has come a long way in the last 43 years and for Panteras, the value does not seem to be impacted by modifications.  In fact, the more "improved" a car is, the more value it seems to carry.  Eventually, I will do a full re-spray on the body and do a color change. 

So that's the plan but over the last couple of weeks, I've been hit with reality.  I got the brakes and steering sorted.  I got the engine running after a ~5 year slumber.  All seemed to be going well but I always suspected something was seriously wrong or the car probably wouldn't have been parked all those years ago. 

I took my first drive about a mile down to the gas station and back with no problems.  I got this drive in just before it started raining for 3-4 days.  The first chance I got I took her back our for a longer driver.  I just stayed around the neighborhood putting about 5 miles on the clock in a 15 minute period.  This drive was not without problems.  The engine temp pegged the gauge and before I could make it back, the oil pressure started dropping to 5-10 psi and the engine was rattling just a little bit.  I was able to limp her home but my worst fears were a reality;  the engine was sick and needed to come out, sooo. . . .

First thing to do was to remove the rear deck lid, which was surprisingly easy to do.

Then I just started disconnecting everything:  Drive shafts, clutch hydraulic line, exhaust, coolant, fuel lines, etc.  I just unbolted the AC compressor from the engine and left it in the car without opening up the system.  I have no idea if it even has a charge in it but didn't care to find out. When all was said and done, I had an empty engine bay to show for it.

And the heart of the car on a stand, which by the way is somewhat of a logistical issue when pulling the motor out of a mid-engined car.  The back of the motor is facing toward the engine hoist instead of away from it which makes it difficult to get the engine mounted on the stand. 

I started in on tearing the engine down and found most of what I suspected to be true:  It still has the original timing chain set including the nylon cam gear.  The bearings are the original Ford bearings and actually show very little wear.  I only saw copper on a couple of rod bearings and none was showing on any of the mains. The engine has not been over-bored.    The cylinders look pretty decent, even considering the water I found when I first turned it over.  There was no sludge to be found of any sort.  I did find the oil pump pick-up to be about 60% clogged with I'm not sure what.  My 351C expert friend tells me it's probably nylon material from the previously mentioned cam gear.

One thing I was not expecting was that I have a 4 bolt main block with open chamber heads.  This motor was used in the '72 models.  The '71 models (mine is a '71) used a 2 bolt main with closed chamber heads and a compression ratio of around 10.5:1 (I'm estimating here).  But apparently the last couple of hundred '71 model year cars got the 4 bolt main motor with open chamber heads.  My car was built toward the end of '71 so this seems to be in line with what I've seen.  Other differences about on the '72 motors include headers (vs. cast manifolds) and base timing of 10 degrees (vs. 6 degrees).  These changes were made to compensate for the lower compression ratio of about 8.5:1 to maintain the horsepower rating. 

Here are all of the pieces of the engine on the work bench and floor:

And here is the block.  Amazingly, with about 15-20 minutes of clean-up, the block looks pretty decent.

We found evidence of a head gasket issue.  I also am somewhat concerned about the head for bank 2 (cylinders 5 & 6 in particular).  After much consideration, I've decided to just refresh the motor with rings and bearings.  My buddy has a set of closed-chamber heads that I'm going to use and I'm also going to change out the cam with something a little more aggressive.  With the compression ratio bump and bigger cam, I should get a healthy horsepower increase but keep it pretty reliable. 

You may be asking why not machine the block and do a proper re-build, which is a fair question.  Back to my plan:  For now I just want to get the car on the road.  I intend to do a 408 stroker motor in a couple of years.  Doing the motor like this for now gets me on the road quickly and economically, which is what I want, and I'm comfortable that it will run fine.  Time will tell if I'm right.

Brake Master Cylinder

When I picked up the car it had a firm brake pedal.  I got it home and rolled it off the trailer, it had a firm brake pedal.  I decided to flush out the old, nasty fluid with fresh and half way through the something happened:  The pedal went to the floor, air blew out of the brake bleeder and the master cylinder started making a grinding noise.  No matter how much we tried, we couldn't get the air out. 

I removed the master cylinder and when I took it apart I found lots of rust and pitting in the bore.  This is not the original master cylinder for the car.  Somewhere in 2127's life, a master cylinder off another car was fitted using this aluminum adapter block.  In the picture below, you can see the aluminum block between the master and the brake booster.

This is all great except for one problem;  I have no idea which vehicle this master cylinder came off of.  After messing with this for a couple of days and even buying a master cylinder that eventually did not work, I stepped away from this and did the steering.  After that was done though, I had to figure this out.  The only clue is a casting number on the bottom of the master, "29929".

I tried googling it with no success.  Then I found that the Cardone website has a guide that includes casting numbers.  I finally was able to figure out that this casting was used for 75-80 Chevy trucks and 78-86 Jeeps.  I found a Jeep master cylinder at the local parts store but the plunger was different.  I then found one at another store for the Chevy truck.  It looked identical in all respects so I got it and installed it.  Not quite sure what the braking performance will be like but I do at least have a very firm pedal now, which is fine fore the moment.  I'm not planning on any aggressive driving but rather just to get the car on the road and see what I have.  At some point, I plan to revamp the entire brake system including a master cylinder more appropriate for this car than one off a truck.

Wrapping up the Steering Gear

As I wrote in the last post, one of the bolts that holds the steering gear on was just spinning in the captured nut that is hidden in the frame.  I was able to get it out but it was not going back in.  I'm not looking to get into restoration work for now.  I just want to get the necessary systems sorted and put the car on the road.  Later on, I plan to take the body down to bare metal and make any necessary repairs.

For now, this is what I came up with.  It should be solid until I decide to repair the nut.

Using a bore-scope, I could see that at least 1/2" of bolt was beyond above the surface of the nut.  I found a nut in my spare nuts/bolts drawer that fit the bolt correctly.  I welded it to some bar stock and now I should be able to just thread it on.  The bar stock will hit the side of a frame wall that will keep it from spinning so I should be able to tighten the bolt no problem. 

I welded a piece of wire to the nut to fish it into the cavity where the nut goes through.  Turned out to be very difficult to get the bolt started.  Messed around with it for at least a couple of hours getting very frustrated but finally, it got it started and then it tightened up as expected.  Not the rack is well secured and I can move onto the brake master cylinder.  I'll post about that tomorrow.

Thanks for looking.

Steering Gear Rebuild

I had some issues with the brakes but they have not been fully resolved so I'll save that for another day. . .

I turned my attention to the steering gear.  The last time I had the car off the ground, I wanted to check the front wheel bearings for play.  When I checked the right front wheel, there was a ton of movement.  After checking further, I determined that it was not the wheel bearings but rather the steering rack itself.

When researching Panteras prior to buying the car, I had discovered that the steering rack commonly needs to be rebuilt due to an internal bushing that is made of Nylon (or something) that deteriorates over time and allows ridiculous amounts of play in the steering gear on the passenger side.  My car was no exception, so I ordered the parts to fix it.

There is an excellent tech article on rebuilding this steering rack on the "Pantera Place" web-site, which is what I used to work my way through this rebuild.

Of course the first thing was to get the rack off the car.  This proved to be challenging and apparently I was not the first to try.  The pinch bolt on the steering column to Pinion gear joint was already loose.  When I went to remove the 4 rack mounting bolts, I found that one of the captured nuts (hidden inside the frame) was no longer captured and the bolt was just spinning freely but would not come out.  The tech article on "Pantera Place" says to sell the car if this happens (I think in jest).  While that is a little drastic, this will prove to be a pain in the ass to repair.  I'll show that in a later post.

At any rate, I was able to get the bolt out with a little luck and the rack off the car, and here it is on the bench in all it's dirty and cruddy glory:

There was easily 3/16" of play in the steering gear so I'm glad I did this.

Next step was to remove the outer tie rod ends and the boots to expose the inner tie rods.  There is a locking collar that is staked to prevent the tie rod from coming loose.  This staked portion has to be "un-staked" to remove the collar and tie rod.  I modified a punch to make this easier.

Then using a couple of pipe wrenches, loosened the collar so I could remove the inner tie rod.  After that I needed to remove the pre-load mechanism and pinion gear.  Each plate is held on with two 13mm bolts.  Then the inner shaft can be slid out of the housing.  This is what you have after dissassembly:

Using a long piece of black pipe, I knocked out the old bushing.  The old worn out bushing is on the right and the new brass bushing is on the left.

Using an appropriate sized socket, I installed the new bushing along with the set screw and then it's just a matter of assembling in the reverse order. . . except for one problem:  The inner steering shaft would not slide freely into the outer case.  The outer case was bent!  My best guess is that someone lifted the car and had the jack on the steering rack.  The old bushing was so warn it didn't matter, but with the new bushing installed, it was a no go.  

At this point, I'm really thinking that I'm going to have to buy a new steering gear but they're kind of pricy.  I decided to take the housing to work to see if I could straighten it out in a press.  I got very lucky and it only took two attempts to get it straight enough for the inner rack to slide freely. 

Now I could assemble the rack.  And here it is, all back together again, thoroughly cleaned and with new boots:

Now to get it re-installed and and the toe set.  I still have that captured nut to contend with.  I'll post some pictures of that later.

Thanks for looking.

Will the Engine Start

I got the car home on a Monday, March 24th.  After the trip, I was pretty wiped so I didn't do anything on the car for a couple of days.  That Thursday, I decided to dive in and see exactly what I had.

A little back story is due here.  As I understand it, prior to the last 12 months or so, the same person had owned the car for 28 years.  The car was parked some 4-5 years when he sold it to a friend of his, Tom.  Tom bought the car with the intention of doing a little TLC and getting it on the road as a driver.  When Tom got it, all four wheels were flat and would not hold air.  He ended up getting a replacement set of original Campagnolo wheels and new tires as well as a new battery.  He also got a slave cylinder for the clutch but never actually installed it.  He buffed out the paint and discovered pretty severe cracking in the paint and bondo.  At that point, he decided it was too much of a project for himself and decided to sell it, which is where I come in.

So the first thing I wanted to do was assess the engine.  If it is OK, I'm in business.  If not, it's not the end of the world.  It's a 351 Cleveland.  I can build one for cheap, especially compared to a Ferrari or Lamborghini engine.

First thing I did was pull the plugs to see if there was anything there.  I started with bank 2 (driver side) and then did bank 1.  All was OK until I got to the very last plug (cylinder 1) and found it to be cross threaded.  Not good.  After getting the plug out it got worse.  Water started pouring out of the spark plug hole.  I have to admit that my heart sank a little here, but after getting over the initial shock, I kept going.

It was water in the cylinder and not coolant.  I don't know where the water came from, rain water or car wash?  At any rate I pulled the bulkhead cover from the interior to gain access to the front of the engine and put a breaker bar on the crank pulley bolt to see if I could turn the engine over.  After initially being stuck, the engine broke free and turned.  I continued to turn the engine and blew water out of 5 of the 8 cylinders.  Am I ever glad I decided to pull the plugs before cranking the engine over.  Disaster averted.

I blew the cylinders out with compressed air and then sprayed WD40 in all the cylinders and continued to crank it over and got it turning pretty smoothly.  That weekend, I changed the oil and installed new plugs (No 1 plug threaded in no problem - got lucky again) and then cranked the engine over a couple more times by hand.  All seemed OK so I went big and cranked it with the starter.  All sounded good so it was time to try and get her started.

After tinkering around with the ignition system electrical connectors and coil secondary wire, I got good spark.  We filled the carb bowl with fresh fuel and turned the key.  She lit off right away and blew smoke everywhere while at it.  She's alive but I couldn't get her to draw fuel from the tank.  I ordered a new fuel pump.  While waiting for that I installed the slave cylinder Tom had bought.

After installing the new fuel pump and fuel line from the tank to the pump, I had this to show for it:

I know this was a long post.  I'm still catching up to real time.  The next posts should be a little shorter and hopefully more pictures.

This will be the start of a new chapter in my life both out in the garage and on the computer.  I got a new car to play with and this is my first attempt at blogging.  I'm more comfortable out in the garage but we're going to give this a go anyway.

I've liked Panteras since I was barely a teenager, even before I knew what they were or anything about cars really.  I was rummaging through a box of my old stuff a couple of months back and found this:

I got this cup when I was like 12 or 13, and for some reason, I've kept it all these years through some 15 moves, give or take.  I had already been looking for a car for a while when I found this cup.  Just seemed like a sign or something that I was on the right track.

The Search:
I've been looking for the better part of a couple of years to see what was out there but in the last 6 months I was to the point of ready to buy if I found the right car.  I wanted a project, something I could mess around with in the garage but also drive.  The car I was looking for is pretty rare.  Most cars are either already restored and the sellers are asking $50-60,000.  Or the car is a total basket case, 2 years from being on the road, and the seller wants $20-35,000.  I looked for a good while and missed out on 2 or 3 cars because I was just not quick enough.

Then my luck turned about a month back.  A car was posted on the Pantera Forum and I was the first to call.  Tom, the seller, spent about 25 minutes telling me about the car.  I asked him what his price was and a deal was struck then and there.  With a deposit in the mail the next day, Tom was a stand-up guy and held the car for me while I made arrangements to get the rest of the funds together.  I've been contacted by at least one person already that was next in line behind me if I did not buy the car.

The Pick-up:
The car was exactly what I was looking for:  Decent looking body and interior.  No major parts missing.  Needs some mechanical attention to get it back on the road.  The only problem is that the car was in San Francisco and I was in Tennessee.  Most sane people would just get a shipping company but not me.  I borrowed a truck from work and a trailer from a friend and headed out one Thursday early morning for an "adventure".  2300 miles and 2 days later, I had this to show for it:

2300 more miles and 2 1/2 more days later I had the car to her new home.

And now the real adventure begins:  to get 2127 back on the road after more than 5 years of being parked.