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.
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