I've been friends with Jim Demick (the seller) for years, and he's as honest as the day is long. In fact, last time I was in Alburquerque, I rebuilt the steering rack on his Pantera, which he drives every day--it has well over 120,000 miles on it. It was by far the most worn-out Pantera rack I've ever rebuilt--it was really shot! It's easy to rebuild them however, and now it's good as new.
Anyway, here's a photo of Jim (with me in the background):
He's one of those relatively rare people that literally makes his living on E-bay, selling stuff, almost exclusively Pantera memorabelia, and some Shelby and GT40 stuff too. You can't make your living on E-bay if you screw people over. That said, he's selling a transaxle that he bought from somebody else, and so he has no personal experience with it.
It is possible that this gearbox could actually be in decent shape, even though it has over 90K miles on it. If they are taken care of properly, they are just about bulletproof. However, if they are used hard, or abused, or neglected, they will suffer. Also, even when they have wear issues internally, they are so fundamentally good that the driver often won't notice.
I bought my Pantera with 72K miles on the clock, and the gearbox had never been opened up. It drove absolutely fine, with no problems whatsoever, but when the car was blown apart to be restored I sent it to Dennis Quella to have him rebuild it.
He said it was in pretty good shape overall, but it needed a 2nd gear synchro (that one is the first one to go out), and I also had very unusual wear on 3rd gear that required it to be replaced (new gears cost a fortune but he hooked me up with a used gear he had in stock). There were also some worn bearings that were growling, and those went in the trash too.
Now the gearbox is absolutely flawless.
The most important thing you can do to keep these things alive is change the fluid regularly. Many people neglect the gearbox oil terribly; many Panteras are running around on their ORIGINAL gearbox oil! Gearbox oil is pretty sturdy stuff, but it does break down over time and its lubricative qualities deteriorate. Too, it can eventually absorb moisture, which leads to rust and corrosion.
If you can't remember the last time you changed your gearbox oil, you have waited far too long--plan on doing it this weekend!
Since the gearbox in question here would have to be taken apart and modified in order to be used in a GT40, I would count on finding similar wear issues and thus similar additional costs above and beyond the cost of a simple freshening/conversion. Any used transaxle is a crapshoot, and unless one came fresh out of the crate with a rebuild receipt from a reputable outfit, I'd treat it as a candidate for a rebuild. That's not a bad thing by any means, but don't plan on just having the ring gear flipped with no other expenditures.
