DeTomaso Mailing List: November 2000, Message #191

All:
First off, let me make a correction: my friend's 74 is not 5915, it's 5891. 

I had his car for the weekend to fix. Simultaneously, I took the car out to the Cayucos car show where I met some folks from the PCNC group and Dave and Linda Adler from PI. BTW, about 8 or so Panteras were there.

O.k. Here's what I did to Don's car this weekend. Obviously, the door locks didn't work. Besides that, you couldn't open the car from the inside. Once I took out the 7 or so little screws, operating handle and inner door handle, I found that there is this funny looking "lug" piece (for lack of a better term) that secures the operating rod to the door opening mechanism. Disconnect that and you'll be opening the door from the outside :^(. First thing I did was to put back that spring "lug" piece to the opening mechanism. Both sides were having the same problem so I had to open up the other side and do the same. Having fixed both, I thought I was done. The trouble is when my roommate and I were going to Morro Bay to a restaurant, he opened up the door without undoing the lock. That sickening sound of the "lug" piece undoing and hitting the door bottom made my heart sink. The door couldn't open from the inside (AGAIN!). If anything annoys me is having to do the whole job over. 

Later,  I went back to the house and undid the door panel, latch, and inner door handle. This time, I secured the "lug" piece to the door operating rod. The door, apparently, is designed to unlock from the inside when you pull up the latch. My roommate did and his action undid the lug. Putting the nylon tie on that area secures the "lug" to the operating rod and solved the problem. If anyone has a similar problem, consider doing this to your car.

On the window mechanism. The 74's window lift mechanism was shot. I could tell that he still had the nylon gear inside his unit without opening up the 1/52 Ducellier housing. After disconnecting the lift arm from the window, pulling the unit out and testing it unloaded, I could hear the "hesitation" in the motor as it went through one point of the arm's travel. I ended up swapping out #2428's unit with this one and will charge Don for the replacement brass gear. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the window mechanism all the way up on his car. This is an extra adjustment that needs to be done that I didn't have time to do. Well, there is at least one more happy P-car owner on the Central Coast.

Cal #2428/#6659