DeTomaso Mailing List: June 2000, Message #169

Hi guys,

It's midnight on Sunday night, and another PCNC tech session (albeit a small 
one) has come to a close, with a good time had by all.

The impetus for this session was the recent purchase of a more-or-less 
unknown (and almost totally un-inspected!) Pantera by the original PCNC 
president from 1973, Ken Levin (who damn well should have known better than 
to buy a car without check it out for rust first!)  He reported a knocking 
from the right front suspension, which is an obvious clue to the typical 
blown-out steering rack bushing syndrome.  Since I've done about a zillion of 
these things (actually, I think I'm up to about #18 or so?) I volunteered to 
help him out.  Since Ken lives in a condo with no garage, I volunteered the 
use of my house (which also kept my commute short!)

I told Ken that there were several people interested in coming, and 
apparently Ken got the mistaken impression that this would be a traditional 
PCNC tech session, with cars scattered all over the place and all sorts of 
projects underway.  What he didn't understand is that EVERYBODY who was 
coming, was coming with the intent of helping with Ken's project.

People started arriving just after 10:00 a.m., and eventually there were four 
Panteras present (including mine), six owners (or ex-owners between cars) and 
two shoppers looking to Get Smart.

The only thing missing was KEN!!!!  He got tied up with other projects 
(walking the dog???) and thus he didn't arrive until after 12:30!  In the 
meantime, we had a tire-kicking session in the front of the house, helping 
educate the potential owners, while others hung out inside and watched the 
Monaco F-1 race.

When Ken finally arrived with his daughter, we set to fixing the car right 
away.  In no time it was up in the air, angled to drain the (nonexistant) oil 
from the rack, while we eyeballed the car and tried to figure out if he got a 
good deal or bought a lemon.  The motor is pretty tough and the car sounds 
great with the Mind Train exhaust, but ugh, those wire wheels have GOT to go! 
 Luckily he has the original Campys back at home--a tire swap is high on the 
list of Things To Do.

I jumped under the car with my trusty hammer and "bummer stick" (flat-nosed 
punch), and saw the good news/bad news situation.  Bad news:  the car had 
rust.  Good news:  somebody had gone to a reasonable amount of effort to 
repair the damage.  Bad news:  the repairs were highly amateurish.  Good 
news:  they appeared to be effective.  Bad news:  There were no drain holes 
in the repaired metal.  Good news:  said drain holes are easy to create.  Bad 
News: The rearmost chassis tubes hadn't been attended to and were rusted to 
shreds beneath the 1/2 inch drain hole.  Good news:  It's not that big a deal.

So I got out my drill and knocked out a few drain holes, very pleased that 
three of the tubes were ROCK solid (although ugly), and very surprised to 
discover that the repairer had pooped out and decided to fix the fourth tube 
using BONDO!  So that one got a bond-ecktomy and now has a jagged 3/4 inch 
diameter drain hole.

Having worked up an appetite, a temporary work stoppage was called and 
Patrick Wu and I made a McDonald's run in the 427 Cobra, which resulted in a 
nice (albeit antsy) picnic on the front lawn under a nice shade tree, not to 
mention a goofy grin on Patrick's face that wouldn't go away!

Turning to the rack, it was apparent that due to the lack of lubrication, 
extensive (yet easily remedied) corrosion had built up on the rack, which 
would necessitate its removal and disassembly to eradicate.  After an hour of 
futile attempts to deal with it on the car, we set to taking the rack out.

This particular car had suffered a thorough glopping of Ziebart (or some 
similar undercoating scam) which made it rather unpleasant to work on, as 
crap would continually fall on our faces.  Too, virtually every fastener on 
the car was rusted solid.  Ken wasn't a big believer in using penetrant to 
help loosen the nuts; he seemed to prefer the Brute Force technique of using 
a 1/2 inch ratchet and breaker bar on a 13mm nut, which resulted in a rather 
impressive array of two-piece bolts!

Eventually the rack was on the bench, the various bits of nuts and bolts were 
accumulated and placed in Patrick's hands, and he was sent on a 
hardware-buying expedition.

We dismantled the rack, then Joel Gust and Ken attacked it with Scotch-brite 
and had it clean as a whistle in no time.  After a false start (I started to 
re-assemble the rack in the housing before I figured out that it would be 
smarter to install the bushing BEFORE putting the rack into the housing), we 
got the thing fully sorted and all back together.

At this point we noted that it had been an hour and a half since Patrick set 
off for the hardware store, a drive of a mere 15 minutes.  Either he was 
being VERY picky about the bolts he would buy, or something had gone 
Seriously Wrong.

Soon the phone rang.  Patrick is certainly the next candidate for the PCNC 
Dipstick Award (given to Larry Stock after he ran both his Pantera and his 
tow truck with virtually zero oil.)  Patrick had been enroute to the hardware 
store in his 5.0 Mustang when the idiot light illuminuted and he had zero oil 
pressure.  This was due to zero oil quantity!  So he had to hoof it to the 
nearest oil source, then back to the car so he could continue! :>)

Mark Tumberello, in the meantime, had eyeballed Ken's broken exhaust hanger, 
and together they had formulated A Plan which called for yet more hardware 
that I didn't own.  So Mark and I jumped into my Pantera (note:  it is 
capable of attaining the locomotive state with virtually no drama, a fact 
demonstrated before one and all!) and we roared to the hardware store, where 
we found Patrick with Furrowed Brow, carefully analyzing the hardware in his 
hand and that on the shelves, coming up with the Perfect Match.

Soon we were all back at the house, and the reassembly phase began.  As Mark 
fixed the exhaust hangers, Ken and I (and his daughter, surprisingly 
good-natured and helpful) set to re-installing the rack.  Ken managed to 
brutalize one bolt/nut ass'y (it may have been a non-metric nut on a metric 
bolt, but somehow I think he just cross-threaded it and kept going!), which 
required Mark and I to laboriously remove it and replace it.  But otherwise 
installation was going fairly smoothly.

Then it came time to install the steering coupler onto the pinion.  I 
hammered a screwdriver into the coupler to spread it, while Patrick got 
inside the cabin and used a hammer and a punch on the back side of the female 
slider piece, to hopefully tap the coupler onto the rack pinion.

Tapping turned to smacking turned into whaling on the damn thing, but it was 
highly resistant to budging.  After 15 or 20 minutes of this, I called a 
time-out and pounded the screwdriver further into the split, which then 
resulted in smoother movement.

But then for the life of me I couldn't get the stupid bolt in the coupler to 
secure it.  The pinion is notched so the coupler has to be positioned Just So 
or the bolt won't go through.  Patrick would dutifully tap a few times, I'd 
try it, then declare it had gone too far, so he'd hand me the hammer and 
punch, and from underneath the car I'd tap back.  The thing went back and 
forth for ten minutes before the Clue light illuminated over my head.  I 
shone a flashlight into the hold and found...

..the SCREWDRIVER was what was holding up the bolt.

DUH!!!!!!!!!!

Shoot, after that it all went together smoothly.  

Well, except for one minor thing.  When we pulled the right front wheel in 
the morning, we were surprised to see that the alignment shims between the 
a-arm and ball joint were standing at attention.  They were secure in the 
back, but were sticking up at a fairly radical angle and were an inch above 
the bolt on the front side.  That couldn't be good.

So before installing the tie rod, Ken set to dealing with it.  I was on the 
other side of the car and heard a noise that made me think that somebody had 
put a cat into my bench vice and clamped him to the max!  Turns out it was 
just Ken, forgoing penetrant again and twisting the hell out of his upper 
ball joint bolt, until it, too, snapped neatly in two.

Yikes!  You don't find THOSE in hardware stores!!!!  I looked through my 
limited hardware collection, and could only find one bolt long enough to 
replace it.  This one is considerably smaller in diameter than the factory 
bolt, but it would have to do.  We installed it and cleared Ken for a 
one-time flight back to his house, whereupon he would buy ALL new bolts and 
nuts for both sides and swap 'em all out.

We wrestled the tie rod onto the end of the rack, buttoned up the right side, 
then I used my Extra Custom Rack Filling Tools (a bent piece of tin and an 
empty 35 mm film canister) and put 5 ounces and some change of 80W90 gear oil 
into the driver's side of the rack.  

Soon all the wheels were on the car (minus one lug nut on the back, which was 
different from the others, and sized for a decidedly different automobile 
than this one), Ken took the car for a spin around the block, and pronounced 
that It Was Good.

By this time it was, oh, 8:45 p.m. or so.  

All in all, a highly successful day, despite the late start.  Ken got his 
steering fixed (although he's still got some excessive wobble at the junction 
of the male/female slider pieces, nothing that Roger Sharp can't fix with a 
spot of weld the way he did with Asa Jay's car), and more importantly, he 
found out that his car isn't rusted to shreds, but is quite driveable (well, 
he's got a badly blown-out driver's side axle/wheel bearing, although the 
passenger side looks good.)  We had a couple of prospective buyers get 
considerably smarter, and apparently one of the Panteras present was quietly 
for sale, and perhaps the seeds of a deal have been sown...

Thanks to all who made the not-inconsiderable trek to my house.  I believe 
the shortest distance driven was about 45 minutes, with others driving a full 
two hours each way just for the opportunity to have some fun, drink some beer 
(only three bottles the entire day???) and help out a guy in need.  

Although it's nice to have a big club in your back yard, even if you're 
somewhat geographically removed from your fellow owners as I am, there's 
nothing preventing you from putting the word out and having a get-together.  
Everybody benefits, and everybody has a great time.  What more could you ask? 
:>)

Mike