DeTomaso Mailing List: April 99, Message #188

At 22:11 -0400 5/4/99, gonancy@juno.com wrote:
>Kirby, Chuck, Walter, et al.
>     Thank you all for the advice and commiserating.  Jacked up the car
>this weekend with the intent to install the lower and front upper pieces
>and discovered the front trunk one isn't going in without moving
>virtually all the brake lines that got moved around when I installed the
>PPC ( Colorado ) master cylinder, so that one has to wait.

You're welcome. Hope we're helping some???!!!!

Hmmm... OK. As for the master cylinder, agreed. I have the PPC unit 
and all I did was unbolt the two large bolts that hold the MC onto 
the booster and lean it carefully to the side. The upper brace went 
in fine then with the only problem being that I couldn't get to one 
of the plug welds as I mentioned in my second long posting. 
Otherwise, it fit in fine with the brake lines running just to the 
rear and right of the brace plate. However, I do agree that every car 
is different, so you may have different issues. My cross beam on the 
upper front brace is actually bowed due to the fact that it wasn't 
really wide enough to start with. But it did fit after cranking on 
the turnbuckle. Wrote it off to 'my car's different' and wider there.

>house.  Now the lower rear, the brake line that runs along the inside of
>the right frame rail will have to be moved, and all that black gooey sh*t
>will have to come off  wherever we gotta' weld,

Yep. Gee... You're making me remember all the stuff that I did 
without thinking too much about it! I had to move my brake line 
slightly and also had to reroute my speedometer cable slightly. But 
neither was too big an issue. In fact, I like the way the brace 
protects both lines better now. They're routed more cleanly than they 
were before.

As for the gooey black stuff... and welding? On the bottom brace? 
Don't think you want to do that!!!! How is it going to come off when 
you want to pull the oilpan? The lower one is not welded as far as 
I'm concerned. Just bolted between the two A-arm mounts. I had a 
removeable cross beam, but sold it to Don Franck after installing the 
Hall kit. So removing the brace will be a bigger PITA than the simple 
brace, but then....

>the brace that goes just over the transaxle is too long to fit 
>between the wheel housings when the brackets are attached

Yep. Mentioned that in my second posting to the list. I unscrewed 
each side from the turnbuckle and ground them down carefully with a 
bench grinder to make them slightly shorter. When I got them to the 
length I needed to slide the entire assembly between the wheel houses 
with the turnbuckle all the way in, I stopped. I wrote it off to 'my 
car being different' again. Sounds like yours is the same!

>, let's see what else, oh yeah, the upper wheel
>house brace hits the clutch slave cylinder so it will have to be notched
>and a gusset welded in to clear.

Nope, no problem there. Mine cleared that just fine, fortunately...

>  Consequently nothing got put in.
>Well all  these trick chassis braces are cool especially when they're
>just sitting in a box in the garage :-((.  Maybe they'll get installed
>before my next track session May ninth,
>jeez I hope so that's what I bought 'em for.
>Well wish me luck with this, I'm gonna need it.

Good luck! I think ya' see whatcha' gotta' do now at least!

:-))))))))))

FWIW,

Kirby

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Kirby Schrader                       kschrader@slb.com
                                     kschrader@earthlink.net
'71 Pantera #1661
'78 Longchamp GTS #3001 Waiting patiently for a new hood and fender....
'90 Thunderbird 35th anniversary special
http://members.tripod.com/~kschrader/index.html
Fear? I live with it everyday.
Sometimes, _she_ lets me race!