DeTomaso Mailing List: May 1997, Message #212
     



From: MikeLDrew@aol.com

Subject: Re: ZF transmission overhaul

Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 04:31:16 -0400 (EDT)



Capt Mike Drew

150 Westgate Dr.

San Francisco, CA  94127



Home/FAX:   (415) 334-7860



E-mail:  MikeLDrew@aol.com



Hello all,



Regarding ZF repair work on the east coast, here's a quote from Mike Cook of

Panteras by Cook on this issue, taken from an interview which will appear in

the upcoming POCA quarterly:



"As far as the gearboxes, even when I was at Cook's High Performance, there's

only one outfit that I truly trusted with the ZF gearboxes, and that's Roy

Butfoy and his son Lloyd.  He's the only one that I trust, and I've never had

a failure with his gearboxes."



Jack stated that Roy is the only one on the West Coast working on ZF's.

Actually, that's far from true, although at least three west coast Pantera

vendors subcontract all their ZF work to Roy.  Recently he purchased

exclusive rights to the ZF 5DS-25 series transaxle from ZF, including 100% of

their spare parts inventory.  If anyone wants to repair one of these suckers,

they have to get the parts from Roy.  If Roy doesn't like a particular

vendor, that guy doesn't get parts, and any gearboxes he repairs are then

suspect.  So he's the biggest, and he's the wholesaler for all the parts.

Sorry I don't have his address/phone number; he doesn't really advertise

anymore.  His outfit is called RBT Transmissions (Roy Butfoy Transmissions,

get it?) and he's in the L.A. megopolis somewhere.  Anyone else got it handy?



Remember, these gearboxes are highly specialized, very complicated, very

different from traditional transmissions, and require a host of special tools

to do the job properly (the factory tool kit alone costs $90,000!!!!!!)

Steve Wilkinson has been ZF-factory certified to work on these suckers, and

I know at least one owner who was very happy with his work restoring his -1

ZF (it cost over $5,000 because the gearbox was ENTIRELY shot, all five gears

needed replacing, plus a lot of other expensive parts.)  I don't know if he

has the proper tools, though-I doubt it.



Gary Hall, of course, can rebuild gearboxes.  I've never heard anything

positive or negative about a Hall rebuild, I suspect he doesn't have the $90K

tool setup, but I could be wrong, again, it's just a hunch.  I presume he's

done a bunch of them over the years.



Personally, I had mine rebuilt by Dennis Quella at Pantera Performance Center

in Colorado.  He's the one that taught me about the intricacies of these

things, and stressed to me that they should only be repaired by qualified

technicians using the proper tools, with the complete inventory of

specialized shims, parts, etc. available.  Dennis does TONS of ZF work,

probably almost as much as Butfoy; his father was one of Ford's original ZF

men (along with Butfoy) working on the GT-40 project, and that's where Dennis

learned his skills (and inherited his tools.)  Dennis is the favorite of the

Pikes Peak racing set (who use ZF's in their mid-engined winged wonders) and

that says a lot to me.



So there you go, that's about it for the west coast.  Cory Gehling in the

midwest does ZF work too if I'm not mistaken (Kent, care to confirm/deny, and

does Cory have The Tools?)



Regardless of who you have do the work, call them in advance.  They will ship

you a dedicated ZF shipping crate, you plop your gearbox inside, ship it back

for rebuild, it comes back to you in the crate, which has a $100 core charge;

you send it back and get your $100 back, or keep it and pay for it.  (Of

course, in a complicated series of transactions, I paid $100 for my crate,

and it wound up getting dumped in Wally Baldyga's yard in Connecticut!  He

says I can come get it whenever I want...)



Mike