Wiring

I started wiring up my Pantera over the past couple of months. I have always used Hot Rod Wires for all my auto wiring needs. I know you die-hard Ford fans will cringe at this but it is a GM based wiring system. I hate saying this, but the GM philosophy of wiring is so much easier to work with. Nice part about this company is that the owner is available for phone calls to help with questions on how to wire up the system. I'm in no way an expert at wiring but feel totally confident with this guy's help to make any car do exactly what it needs to do with their wiring kit.

I used their 18 circuit system that set me back around $300. Here's a shot of the system along with a link to their web site. http://www.hotrodwires.com/product/18-circuit-harness.html

I also ordered a wiring diagram for the car I took the ignition switch module from. It took a little digging but having the wiring diagram is critical to marry up the wiring system to the ignition, turn signal, horn, headlights and windshield wipers. After carefully attaching each of the Hot Rod Wires to the ignition module, I'm actually able to turn the engine's starter motor using the ignition key. That's some good progress.

Here's a picture of the "rat's nest" of wires that I am working with. When I have every thing hooked up and tested I will do a little beautification work to get it all looking the way I want it to.

HEADLIGHT DOORS

After getting the ignition module hooked up I decided to tackle the headlight doors. The previous owner had already installed the opening motor and limit switches and had a bundle of wires coming from each connection. After a little digging I found several wiring diagrams for the original Pantera. Now the fun begins.

I said earlier, I'm not an expert at wiring up anything. But, after restoring several cars now, wiring is something I just had to figure out. After staring at the original Pantera wiring diagram for the headlight doors, I saw that I was going to have to get creative with the relay setup. I had already pulled a small power distribution box from a small Ford at the junk yard. This box came with slots for four relays. I already knew that I was going to mount this thing in the front boot and use it to control the headlight doors and the radiator fan. Now I needed to figure out how to make the doors work. Here's a shot of the power distribution box I'm using.

Relay 1&2 are used to control the headlight doors. Relay 3 is for the fan motor. The fourth slot is open for some other circuit that needs a relay in the future.

I saw on the original wiring that they used a double throw relay for the headlight doors. I never used anything like this and didn't have the place to mount such a thing. I came up with the following scheme to use normal relays to do the same thing as shown in the original wiring diagrams. The first diagram shows the current path for when the headlight switch is turned on. The second one is when the headlight switch is turned off.

Great in theory, but will it work. I soft wired everything up and, can you believe it, the doors go up and down as I had hoped! I then hard wired it all up and again, it worked perfectly.

More will come on wiring as interesting things arise.

Defrost and AC Venting

I really didn't think about the effort that would go into making your own dash. One thing I overlooked was how to get air to the vents both for the A/C and for the defroster. I tried a bunch of parts from the junk yard, but none of them would work without major modification. So, time to make my own.

Basically I used a bunch of scrap exhaust tubing and light weight sheet metal to make all the vents. The next three shots shows the center defrost vent for the dash.

I painted up this piece a nice flat black. I then stuck some rubber seals for windows around the sealing edge and screwed it into the underside of the dash. Here's a couple pictures of the two side defrost vents. You can see the white seals I used. 

The A/C vents were pretty easy to make compared to the defrost vents. The A/C vents didn't have as much of a clearance issues as did the defrost vents. Here's a couple shots of the three A/C vents.

These vents will be installed with a set screw attaching them to the vent opening already in the dash itself. Pretty simple fabrications that should do the trick.

Side Vents

I have seen pictures of the side window treatments that double as vents for the engine bay on Pantera pictures I've seen on the Internet. Just like most of all the other projects on this Pantera, what I want to do is so customized that purchased parts just don't make sense.

Since I don't have any of the window pieces in my parts inventory that came with the car I decided that the vent should cover the entire side window space. I also want the vent to be functional. At least one side will be ported to the intake of the Coyote engine I've placed in the car. The passenger side has to have a fuel fill door for access to the fill tube I installed earlier.

The question was how to make this thing and make it look good. It took three tries to get it where I think it's going to work. The first attempt was to cut out a couple wood pieces that fill the space then spayed on some of that "good stuff" foam on the cutout. That's the stuff used to fill cracks in home construction. I then tried shaping the scoop thinking I would fiberglass the final form. Bottom line - not a good idea. I just couldn't get the shape I wanted - Strike One!

Second try I called the Frankenstein approach. I cut out a piece of sheet metal the shape of the window opening. To this I tacked up pieces of metal shaped to make the scoop. After a bunch of cutting and tacking to try and get the shape I wanted I had to stop. This thing was just plain ugly. I'm not sure I could ever duplicate a second piece - Strike Two.

The third attempt was a winner. Here's what I did. I cut another piece of sheet metal the shape of the window opening. Then I a second piece about 1 1/2" smaller all around the edges. Then I bent the curve I wanted for the scoop opening. Now it had to be welded to the flat larger piece that covers the window. But before I did any tacking I had to attach the flat piece to the car. Here's a shot of the flat piece attached with 4 screws.

To make installation and removal as easy as possible I decided to weld the screws onto the flat piece. Even though the body on my Pantera isn't anywhere near being ready for public viewing, I hate welding directly on the car but in this case I had no choice. Here's a shot of my set up with wet towels to try and protect the body from weld splatter.

Here's a shot of the bent pieces before they were welded up to the flat one.

Next I played with the bent piece until I got it to mate up with the flat piece as close as I could. It took a bunch of bending so that the welding could be done as easily as possible. Here's a shot of the tacked up bent metal vent on the flat piece.

The fit was really coming together so I decided to go ahead and make the other side the same way I did this one. When I had both pieces roughed out I did a little more tacking off the car and then did a little grinding off the welds. I used strips of fiberglass to give myself a smooth transition from the curved piece to the flat over the weld spots. Here's a shot of what the rough glassed piece looks like.

Then is was a matter of smoothing out the glass then doing a bunch of bondo work. Once it was smoothed so that I liked the overall shape it was time to make an opening for the fuel fill on the passenger side. I used an existing door from some other car and traced the shape on the vent. I carefully cut it out.

I used a fuel fill door hinge from an old BMW to mount the door back onto the vent. I had to do a bunch of modification to the hinge but once done it opened and closed just the way I wanted it to. Once the door operated like I wanted I then closed the door and bondoed the door completely closed. Crazy, right? I was told by a friend of mine who did a bunch of body work that the only way to get seams as smooth as possible was to bondo them closed then cut them out just like you want them. Once the bondo dried I used a grinder to carefully cut the seam out just like I wanted it to look. This method also gave me a really smooth transition between the door and the vent. Here's a shot of the final product.

Finally I put a little primer on the vents and put them on the car. Here's the driver's side side view and front view.

Here's the passenger side side view and front view with the fuel door opened and closed.

Next I'll work on putting tubing openings on both vents to give me into the Coyote intake. I'm going to wait to do this after I figure out the air filter box and tubing requirements sizes. Check back for more updates later.

Dash Update

I decided that my first dash design needed a bit of updating. The steering column I installed required that I move the gauge holes up quite a bit. Here's a picture of the problem.

As I played with where the gauge holes needed to be I noticed that the dash itself was in the way - part of the gauges would be blocked by the straight bottom part of the dash. I decided to modify the straight part to give more of an arch. It took a little doing but it worked out pretty well. Here's a shot of how it looks now. 

Now the gauges are so much more visible. It looks really good. 

I also cut in vent holes for the defroster flow to the windshield. The vents came out of a mid-90s Ford Escort. They were the small vents on the front of the dash. They were just the right size for my design. There's one more vent you can't see in this shot all the way to the right side of the car. Here's what it looks like all primed. 

Also I did a little grinding to get the A/C vents to work properly. Here's a couple shots of the front of the dash with the vents installed. There's another vent on the driver's side that isn't shown in the pictures below.

Now the dash is ready for texture and final paint. I also need to to design and install venting behind the dash. More on those projects in future posts.

Exhaust Pipes and Mufflers

I knew I wasn't interested in paying the high price for anything remotely close to stock. After doing a bunch of measurements I finally decided that the 12" glass packs from Van Pelts Sales (www.vanpeltsales.com - Part Number FMT-1218G). They measure 12" for the muffler and are 18" from end to end. Total cost $35 per muffler. I bought 4 of them to give the Pantera exhaust that double tip look sticking out of each side.

Next step was to turn the two mufflers into one. I simply welded them together and made my own Y-pipe using various pieces of stainless steel pipe I have around. Here's a shot of the muffler assembly.

After positioning the muffler in place, at the angle I wanted it to sit on the car I was able to start to see how I needed to bend up a piece of pipe to connect the muffler to the header. Immediately I found that the collector on the header was sticking too far back for me to make something fit. Out came the cutoff tool for some modification to the header. Here's what the new collector looks like.

Here's what it looked like before a bit of grinding and welding.

Then came a bunch of cutting, bending and welding. It took about 10 or more cuts to get the pipe to zig zag to where it needs to be so that it goes from the header to the muffler. For all you purist out there, I know that the non-mandrel bends isn't as efficient, but I don't care. I just wanted to get this thing done and this was how I could do it on my own for VERY low cost. Here's a shot of the finished pipe off the car.

This series of shots shows the entire assembly on the car.

You can see that I used the original hanger in the stock location. Here's a shot from the back of the car with the exhaust completed.

Here's a shot of the back of the Pantera with both exhausts completed.

I have a set of chrome tips that I will install as I get closer to completing the car. Not a bad result for less than $200! Can't wait to hear it start up.