[TPR] Riddle me this... noise, shocks and weirdness

[Mad Dog Antenucci]

Great performance report AJ.

 
Mad Dawg Antenucci 
Team Pantera Racing 
The 1st & still the only vintage race team in open road racing 
www.teampanteraracing.com




________________________________
From: Asa Jay Laughton <asajay at asajay.com>
To: tpr at teampanteraracing.com
Sent: Sat, March 26, 2011 7:14:20 PM
Subject: [TPR] Riddle me this... noise, shocks and weirdness

First day of Autocross was today.  Test & Tune, practice and blow the 
cobwebs away in the head.

So I know the Pantera needs a new alignment, now I know it even more.  
But that's not the real concern here.  Some of you may recall I was 
chasing an interesting clunk in my front end a while ago.  Well, it's 
never really gone away.

The steering rack bushing has been replaced, and it sure feels solid.  
All bushings and ball joints have been replaced in the a-arms.  Now here 
are the interesting parts.

When I visited Dennis Quella week before last, I walked through all this 
with him,  Then he asked if I had original shocks on the car, which I 
do.  He then mentioned there are some internal "bits" (as Mike Drew 
would say) that "break" if the suspension is left hanging on the 
shocks.  This is the position most of our cars are in when we are doing 
a lot of work on them for extended periods of time.  (listening Frank)  
I tell him I have original Telecars on the Pantera.  He says he can't be 
sure, but I might want to check that out as a source.

Fast forward to today.  About my fourth run on the course today, I start 
hearing a nasty thunk anytime I radically change direction, like in a 
slalom.  I'm starting to get worried now.  Did I break an a-arm tab?  
Did I break a sway bar mount?  What!  (yea.. it's driving me crazy)

I get home and just got back from inspecting the front end.  Wouldn't 
you know, everything looks -solid-.  But wait for it...

I push down on the front bumper and... nothing.  No movement.  So I pull 
-up- on the bumper and get about three inches... and it -stays-.  I then 
do the hip hula with the front fender and can't get any weird noises.  I 
push the bumper down... it goes about three inches and stays.  I do the 
hip hula on the fender and get all kinds of nasty noises... apparently 
from the shocks?

Okay, so I'm Mr. poor boy here, yea yea... you've all heard that sad 
story.  A kind soul sold me what they thought were Konis, which weren't, 
so I subsequently sold them because I couldn't get them rebuilt in the 
states (turned out to be a foreign brand).  So then some kind soul sent 
me a set of "practically brand new" Telecars, which looked in worse 
shape than those already on my car.  Swapping a couple of them didn't 
seem to make the noise go away and I really can't say I'd prefer 
swapping another set of Telecars.

<sigh>
so..... does anyone out there have a set of known good shocks they'd be 
willing to "loan" me for about a month so I can determine if this is 
really the root problem or not?  I'm sure you can probably get them 
packed in a Large Priority Mail Flat Rate box (it's how I shipped those 
off brand shocks).  I  hate to beg.  If I had more Pantera people close 
by, it probably wouldn't come to this.

More highlights from today...
- I was the first person to "spin" on the course today, it was actually 
a bit of fun even though I took out a few
cones.
- I totally -ate- a cone on exiting a bus-stop gate... so much so that I 
brought it all the way back to grid.  On the upside... the license plate 
is much more aerodynamic now.  :)
- The car ran -great-!  The bit of tuning I did late last summer seems 
to have made runs a lot smoother.
- The new graphics look awesome.  Photos to come later.

Alright, who wants to loan me a set of shocks?

Asa Jay

-- 
Asa Jay Laughton, MSgt, USAFR, Retired
&  Shelley Marie
Spokane, WA
******************************
http://www.racingagainstautism.com
http://www.teampanteraracing.com
http://facebook.com/racingagainstautism

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