Just a suggestion--check to see if the Pan American through southern 
Panama is finished yet before you go.  I was planning a similar 
tripin a '68 Landcruiser with a new Chevy drive train & the whole bit 
a couple of years ago.  Finances were doable (although for the 34,000 
mile round trip drive to Tierra del Fuego, gas money looked a little 
steep at an anticipated 10 mpg, and averaging 200 miles a day for a 
170 day trip would have put a little bit of a dent in my cash 
flow for the year).  My extensive (no kidding) research was pretty 
encouraging; the trip is doable.  There's a guy that's done it twice 
in a datsun 280zx.  The only problem is, as I intimated earlier, that 
as of 1993, according to AAA, Rand McNalley, and any & all other 
maps/atlasses/sources I had, driving from Panama City to Bogota 
compares well with driving from Anchorage to Juenu(sp???) in the 
70's (and 90's?).  Good luck.  Not a single road cuts through those 
mountains.  My buddy who lived in Paraguay for a couple of years 
tells me that when the Pan Am is marked 'planned' or 'under 
construction' on the map, it generally means 'on paper' or 'follow 
the bulldozer'.  not trying to discourage the trip; just encourage 
preparation.  If you can arrange for passage on a boat from Panama to 
Columbia or Venezuela, you should be good to go.  One option I looked 
at was driving to TDF and selling/junking the vehicle there.  A 20 hr 
flight home would provide a heck of a contrast to the road trip of a 
lifetime.  Bien buena suerte!

--Shaun Dustin