DeTomaso Mailing List: July 98, Message #186

On Mon, 6 Jul 1998 GRR456@aol.com (Gary Roys) wrote:
> Andy, 
> 
> So, every time you head out of town, does the server play a trick on you, and
> quit working?

Sometimes it seems like it.  Yes, I came home and it was comatose, putting
it in the same class as my Cleveland (more later - suffice it to say that
Denise and I finally arrived home in a rental car).

Pocono was a major blast (again).  The Pantera turnout was fantastic, plus
several of us east-coasters got our first in-person look at a Mangusta at
the concours.  The weather was great, with only showers during the last run
group of the day on Saturday and rain overnight, and then cool conditions
Sunday.

We all got sunburned, several of us spent some quality time in the paddock
garages wrenching on our cars, and it seemed like a good time was had by
all.  I gave out a ton of smiley stickers for listers' name badges, and
turned a few new people onto the list.  As promised, Gary Hall showed up
with both Burgundy Express and Purple Passion.  The latter is a *very*
impressive car.  Gary and Bobby (and I feel terrible, but I don't know who
the other guys was, with Bobby) were really friendly and helpful, loaning me
all sorts of tools and stuff... and Gary had Kid Corvette (AKA Brian Lerose)
all in a lather, quizzing him about his pushbutton.  :-) Pat Mical also
showed up with his twin-turbo freon intercooled (700-some hp, 24 mpg)
BMW-interiored car.  The Pantera section of the concours seemed really
popular with the crowd, with everything from bone stock original cars to the
afore mentioned wild monsters.

I'm sure others will give more comprehensive reports.  At the moment I'm
distracted with the project of finding a pal with a trailer to go fetch my
dead Pantera.  For some reason, I'm having a run of really bad luck with my
car.  

Before leaving home, I had a U-joint fail, followed by the clutch master
cylinder (we thought it was the hydraulic line at first, but it wasn't) and
we also replaced the rear wheel bearings.  Got the car back at about 4pm on
Thursday, went home and flushed all the fluids, and headed out, reaching the
resort at about 12:30 am Thursday night.  I should have taken the hint when
the speedo went slowly insane, eventually indicating speeds anywhere from 0
to 200 mph.

No problems for me on Friday, though we had to send a couple of people home
when their Panteras failed tech.  Precious tech quote: "But everything was
fine when I had the half-shafts replaced 9 years ago!".  

After running on the track Saturday, I had a steadily worsening exhaust leak
at a badly burned exhaust manifold gasket.  I spent most of Sunday in the
paddock garage borrowing tools and replacing the gasket.  I feared a burned
valve had trashed the gasket, but John Taphorn convinced me it probably was
just loosened header bolts, and inspection upon removing the header confirmed
his suspicion.  Lots of people stopped by to lend moral support as I
struggled with the header removal and gasket scraping, and Kid Corvette lent
a hand as Denise and Holly giggled and snapped pictures of me contorting in
the engine bay trying to get that last collector bolt free.

Got back out on the track for the last session Sunday.  "It was worth all the
work!", I exclaim when I come in from that session, having diced and played
leapfrog the entire session with a GTO and a TestaRossa on a nearly empty
track (alot of folks had left early - only 5 cars ran the last session).

On the way back to the resort late Sunday afternoon, something really bad
happened.  At first I thought it was the clutch because the noises seemed to
be coming from the bellhousing.  At about the same time, both cooling fans
stopped working for no apparent reason, so the car was overheating as we
tried to diagnose the problem in the hotel tennis court parking lot.  Might
as well try to limp home, we decide... not really having any other options
anyway.  "What did I ever do to piss you off like this?", I ask, facing the
cloudy sky.

As we limped home at 45 mph or so (2k rpm in 5th gear), I decided it
definitely wasn't the clutch as the noises were independant of the clutch
being engaged or disengaged, and it got much worse at neutral throttle.
Like a bad rod bearing.  In neutral, it sounds like there are a ton of rocks
in the crackcase when you rev it above idle.  "This is bad... real bad", say
I.

Four hours or so later (of limping along, still at 45 mph, with the hazard
flashers running) things were getting much worse, with a _really_ loud knock
interspersed with a scraping squeak sound (but oil pressure steady and
temperature normal).  By this time I was developing a variety of nervous
ticks and twitches from listening to my engine self-destruct for four hours
:-) and had decided it was probably a write-off.  We gave up on it, dropped
the car off at Denise's brothers house in Harrisburg PA (drawing half of the
neighborhood out of their houses with the horrendous noise), and drove a
rental car home.  I'm hoping I can convince one of my buds with a tow rig to
go up there with me and fetch it.  

Anyway, I guess I've now joined the Drew ranks of the garage floor ornaments
since I'm not going to have the time or money to yank everything out and
disassemble it (and build a new motor) until after the new house is built
this winter.

Any and all guesses at what could be wrong are welcome - I'm totally
stumped and starting to wonder if I didn't maybe suffer two simultaneous
failures.

-Andy
#3822 (in repose)

72 Pantera - Rocky         91 Miata - Steve (bionic)            96 A4Q - Rudolf
80 928 - Phantom               97 Miata - Nadia                84 RZ350 - Sting