Purchased Seats

Like most of 3854, the seats for my Pantera are MIA. That's OK because I wanted something different anyways. I have been looking at seat options and found two options that caught my attention. You can read all about the various options people have considered in the thread below.

http://pantera.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6450045562/m/231109126/p/1

The two options that I decided to take a look at were the Fiero seats (with mrmikes.com) and the Corvette seats (Gary Harrig option). Both of these options seemed to have manufacturers who supplied nice options for covers and complete seat purchases. I decided I liked the Harrig option best and contacted him only to find out that due to arthritis, Mr. Harrig doesn't make the seats any longer. Bummer.

I liked the Fiero seat option as well since covers were available for a good price at mrmikes.com. As I was doing a search on ebay and craigs list for used Fiero seats I came across this ebay vendor.

http://www.ebay.com/usr/zoomzoomzoom-ing

He had a big selection of seat covers and actual seats that he was selling for Posche and BMWs. He also had several Porsche seats that could be purchased with 7 days lead time. When I was looking he had a set of Recaros out of an older Posche that looked perfect. They cost $1,150 recovered and in like new condition. His factory is located in Glendale  and he lives in Seal Beach CA. Seeing that Seal Beach is only 65 miles from my house, I met him there to take a look at the seats. I loved them and bought then - they look fantastic. Here's a few pictures of the seats. They should fit just fine. More to come on that when I get the car's floors prepped for installation.

Dash Finishing

I really liked how the console came out with the fiberglass applied. See that post for the materials used to finish this part of the interior. The same process and materials will be used for the dash assembly itself.

To start the dash I took it out of the car. To do so I have to remove the dash front and take it out separately from the dash top. Once the assembly was removed I started the glassing process.

First I sanded down all the sharp edges. I wanted smooth curves for all the dash top and front. I used a RO sander with 80 grit paper to round the edges. Once cleaned and prepped I layed two layers of fiberglass. I found from working with the glass on the console that it is best to lay the flat surfaces first then come back and do the rounded areas later. This gives a much smoother final product and makes for less patching later. Bubbles in the cloth is still a problem but I'm hoping that will go away the more I work with fiberglass. Bubbles just mean more sanding and bondo - not a big deal but takes time.

Here's couple shots of the dash top fiberglassed. Not much to look at but that's how it starts. Lots of sanding ahead of me.

At the same time I glassed the two bottom sections of the dash to be ready to prep them while I sanded on the top. Here's how they look with two layers of fiberglass bonded down. Notice the rounded edges. The fiberglass really brings those out and makes it look really good. 

This shot of the dash top shows how it got the curve on the top I was looking for. I used the canned spray foam called "Good Stuff" (from Lowes) and sprayed the entire tip with a good helping of the stuff. This stuff is really sticky and adheres to the plywood really well. Once good and dried I took a grinder with a sandpaper attachment and shaped the foam roughly like I wanted it. This is what will shape the fiberglass. Here's what the foam looks like on the board top.

After two layers of glass it was time to sand and bondo. It probably spend three days solid working on the dash top to get it looking smooth. There are still a couple of pin holes that need to be filled but that will come before the final paint is applied. 

Here's the progress pictures. The first picture shows the fiberglass covering. The second picture shows the bondo application on one end. 

Here's a couple of photos showing the top sanded and primed. Still a few small places to touch up but it's looking pretty good. 

Here's the two bottom pieces of the dash also sanded and primed. 

Finally the day came to put the dash back into the Pantera. I knew that there would need to be some touchup here and there to make it fit again, but I was amazed how easy it came together.  Here's a bunch of pictures of how it looks put together. 

Still need to figure out what parts will be covered with leather and which pieces will just be painted. For now I think I'm done working on this this part of the project. I still need to install some defroster vents on the top of the dash. That'll happen later. 

Rear End Rebuild

It's a shame that changing the rotors on the Pantera is such an involved process. The rotors on mine are in terrible shape - warped and mismatched. Not something I want to deal with.

I have a new set of Wilwood rotors ready to install but Wow De Tomaso didn't make it easy. Here's a great outline of how to tear down and rebuild the rear knuckle.

http://www.panteraplace.com/page87.htm

Here's a couple before shots. You can see how badly the rotor is rusted. Not a big deal, but try to spin this one and you can quickly see how warped it is.

I removed the knuckles (uprights) and had them sitting in my garage for a few weeks. I was planning to take them to the shop where I was going to get the half shafts rebuilt but Christmas got in the way. As usual, I decided that I just wanted to see if I could take care of the upright rebuild myself. Big problem - no press. 

So after looking at a few presses on Craig's list I decided I could make one myself. Out came some scrap metal, a couple C-clamps, two 4x4s and an old 4 ton bottle jack. Here's a picture of one of the uprights in my "back-woods" press. 

As you can see from this picture, the rotors are missing. That's because I pressed out the shaft using the rotor as the bracing point on my 4x4s. Once the shaft was out I was able to discard the warped and worn rotors.

Upon inspection of the bearings I saw that they looked pretty good. Obviously the previous owner had put in new bearings. Since I had already ordered a new set I decided to change them anyway. Glad I did, one of the uprights wasn't quite put back together right and the spacer between the inner and outer bearing was really loose.

Back to my home made press and out came the old bearings and in went the new. I'm really happy to have been able to do this work myself. Saved a bit of money and learned how to do it for future reference.

I started to but the uprights back together again and found some of the old wheel studs worn too much to reinstall. They spun in the holes - no way to put on a lug nut unless it holds after pressed into place. After searching a few of my favorite parts stores I found that I needed to purchase them online. One of the Pantera parts places has the for a mere $15 EACH!!!! Ouch. I need 10. Plus it takes 4-6 weeks shipping. Not in the cards for me.

I did a little digging and found several wheel studs in a box of parts. Then I saw an old front rotor with new studs in them. I pressed them out and found that all the ones I found worked great. So, I started putting it all together - then I found another issues. The flat place on the wheel stud that was put there to keep it from spinning in the hole didn't come into contact with anything on my new Wilwood rotors.

To fix this problem I decided to weld a tab on the wheel stud so it would give me the holding power needed to keep the stud from spinning. Here's a picture of the finished product.

After getting the studs right it was a pretty easy job of pressing in the shaft assembly. Here's several pictures of the finished product.

I finally found a tool on line to tighten up the nut on the rear hub. Now I had to figure out how to put 300 ft lbs on that nut. Here's what I came up with. I decided to strap the tire and wheel to a frame I had laying around. I then bolted the hub to the wheel. This let me hold the hub securely in place.

I took out my 3/4" ratchet and put that on the tool that I bought. The ratchet is 1.5 feet long. That means that I need to put my entire 230 lbs on the ratchet to get over 300 lbs of torque on the nut. To make this a little easier, I put an 8' bar on the ratchet. With that 8' bar it only takes less than 40 lbs to get the desired 300 ft lbs of torque. I used the long bar to get the nut very tight. I then removed the bar and put my entire weight on ratchet. Here's a couple of pictures of the set up I used to get this job done.

After having the rear out of the Pantera for over two months I finally got to bolt it all back in. Here's the pictures of what it looks like completely in place. You will notice the e-brake set-up is somewhat different than stock!!! I used WILWOOD MC4 MECHANICAL PARKING BRAKE CALIPERS FOR 0.81" WIDE DISCS to make my e-brake work. They are very economical and a nice small package. Straight out of the box it is a very tight fit onto the rotor. I decided to take the caliper apart and do a little grinding to allow the pads on the e-brake to open up a bit more. That solved the tight fit problem nicely.