Author Topic: Looking at getting a pinto, have questions (Read 6415 times)

joecool85 · « **on:** July 23, 2006, 03:18:27 PM »

Ok, I always thought pintos were cool little cars, and I am now thinking about getting one. I have a question though, how important is it to do something about the gas tank? I was thinking about putting a fuel cell in the trunk and maybe some sort of custom filler on the back of the car? Not sure. Anyway, I just want it to be safe as it would be my daily driver.

grgic · « **Reply #1 on:** July 23, 2006, 03:41:49 PM »

My 72 is my daily driver, I take my kids in it, I drive it on the highway every day at 65+ mph. It does have the recall fix but i wouldn't feel any less safe if it didn't. I feel a Pinto is as safe as any 26 to 36 year old car and It would depend on the over all condition of the vehicle
Just my opinion
Joe

77turbopinto · « **Reply #2 on:** July 23, 2006, 04:15:12 PM »

That question is posted often.

I am not posting here to try to talk you in to, or out of getting Pinto, I am just giving a few details to ponder.

Ford did LOTS of rear impact testing, and unless you do the same with any modifications that you do, you will never know how "safe" the car is. I have seen what damage improperly installed "safety equipment" can do.

I have seen people install a racing gas tank INSIDE the car. Trunk or hatch car, I still like the gastank OUTSIDE the body of the car.

ANY CAR THAT IS DRIVEN IS UNSAFE.

I was on a motorcycle and was hit from behind; I would have rather been in a Pinto at the time.

Do what YOU feel comforable with. I don't wish to sound cold, but if you don't feel safe in a Pinto, don't drive one.

Bill

joecool85 · « **Reply #3 on:** July 23, 2006, 05:06:00 PM »

Quote from: jgpinto72 on July 23, 2006, 03:41:49 PM

My 72 is my daily driver, I take my kids in it, I drive it on the highway every day at 65+ mph. It does have the recall fix but i wouldn't feel any less safe if it didn't. I feel a Pinto is as safe as any 26 to 36 year old car and It would depend on the over all condition of the vehicle
Just my opinion
Joe

Alright. I do know its been posted on here often, as I did search first. So I guess I shouldn't have asked lol. How old are your kids? I was hoping that when I have kids I would be able to have them in the back without much issue.

I have kinda big plans for doing up a pinto. I don't want carbs, so I have a good motor swap planned to solve that. I think its one that hasn't been done before.

And my name is Joe too

Blacksheep22 · « **Reply #4 on:** July 23, 2006, 05:56:52 PM »

If you get a Pinto you can check if it has had the recall done by looking under the left rear tire. All the recall consisted of was a big plastic shield between the gas tank and the rearend. Like 77turbopinto said if you go with a fuel cell, you need to do it right or it would be worse then the stock tank. Check with some local racers or builders if you go that route so you can do it properly. A Pinto is no more unsafe than alot of the small cars on the road today in my opinion, but opinions are like A-holes.....everybody has one! :showback: Have fun with it and be sure to show us some pics of it when you get it built.

grgic · « **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2006, 06:52:55 PM »

Quote

How old are your kids? I was hoping that when I have kids I would be able to have them in the back without much issue.

Joe
My 8 and 12 yr old boys ride in it all the time, my 14 year old daughter rides in it if she has to and my 17 yr old daughter wont even admit that it exists, Not sure if it will ever see a car seat for my newborn daughter but when she gets older I would like to think she will ride in it.

Joe

joecool85 · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2006, 08:11:28 PM »

Ah, thats cool. I just haven't been in one yet, so I didn't know how well kids would fit in back. Thanks for sharing! I have kinda big plans for this. But, I have time to plan. I won't be out of college for 2 more years, and that would be the soonest I could start this.

The plan is basically to get a pinto (1974 preferably), dump the old motor/trans/rear end and put in a 3.0 V6, transmission and rear from a ranger. The 3.0 V6 vulcan is one of my favorite motors, and this would be a great application. 150hp/185tq would go great in a 2400lb pinto

Should be in the 6.5 to 7 second 0-60 ranger and get 28-30mpg highway.

oldcarpierre · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2006, 10:20:50 PM »

I bought Pinto number 1 (1973 sedan) in early 1979, a few months after Ford finally admitted the safety flaw. Nobody wanted them, and I bought my first set of wheels with only 39000 miles for $400.

Being eighteen, I was also immortal at the time. I was feeling pretty smug about my purchase and I was not going to bother about that sissy recall. Then one day, I was on a highway going 50 and traffic stopped dead. I looked in my mirror, and I saw that the guy behind me was talking to his passenger, unaware of their fate, and by extension my fate.

In my mind, I could see the video showing how both cars were engulfed in an instant (you can view this video somewhere on this website). I took my seatbelt off and was ready to jump out of the car and over the car that was (also stopped) to my left. In the end, the driver behind me slammed on the brakes, and when I saw that he was going to make it I decided against jumping out. I got to live. From there, I drove directly to my local Ford dealer and booked an appointment for "Safety Recall 293".

Before I recently bought Pinto number 2 (1974 sedan), I found out that "Safety Recall 293" had never been performed on it. I got on the phone with Ford Canada and asked if they could help. They did not have the parts to perform the recall, but they put me in contact with Green Sales in Cincinnati. Green Sales had several kits in stock. I bought two. One to put on the car, and the other one to show. The first thing I did when I got home is to drive to my Ford dealer and have one of these two kits installed. I thought Ford Canada would pick up the cost, but no. It would appear that there is a statute of limitations on safety recalls. That is a story for another day.

This recall is the biggest part of the Pinto's history and is what made it famous. It made it famous for a reason. Do yourself a favor and have the recall kit installed.

goodolboydws · « **Reply #8 on:** July 23, 2006, 11:27:06 PM »

And if you have a choice, you might want to consider getting a wagon, and not just for the practicality of having more space to haul people AND their stuff....

There's more mass to the wagons, and being heavier often helps in a collision with just about any newer car, as many are getting heavy again, and not just the SUV's and pickups. Plus there's more car behind the rear passenger compartment to crush first and help absorb a rear end hit if it comes to that.

The later Pintos actually had fairly substantial impact bumpers, but few people like that look as well as the sportier "tin foil" bumpers on the earlier ones.

joecool85 · « **Reply #9 on:** July 24, 2006, 07:11:16 AM »

I'm not too too worried about beefing up the rear end. I will make sure I either get one with the recall kit, or get a recall kit to install. But I'm also going to add some support for the rear end behind the bumper to not only make it safer, but add some weight in the rear to help with winter traction. Also, I will consider a wagon because unlike a lot of people, I actually enjoy them.

78squirewagon · « **Reply #10 on:** July 24, 2006, 07:19:41 AM »

I love my 78 Squire wagon. You would be surprised as to how much stuff you can load into the back of one of those things plus you can put more stuff on the roof rack. Since mine is the Squire, people go nuts over it because there are not too many of them left. I also like telling people that it has the extra couple of inches from the bumper to the gas tank when they ask if it was one of the ones that exploded.
If you get a Pinto, expect a lot of jokes and ribbing but also expect a lot of stories because a lot of people had them.

M

joecool85 · « **Reply #11 on:** July 24, 2006, 07:24:07 AM »

Do you have any pics of your car I can see? I really haven't seen any pinto wagons. Are they hard to find? I'm really curious about the back "trunk" area. I drove a 1994 mercury tracer wagon for a couple years, I think space wise the pinto wagon should be close in size.

goodolboydws · « **Reply #12 on:** July 24, 2006, 09:41:41 AM »

jopecool,

Unless you are a VERY experienced weldor/fabricator with lots of frame building experience and unibody work in particular, don't even consider adding "some support for the rear end behind the bumper...." on a Pinto, especially if it is one of the earlier cars with the weaker, non-impact bumpers and isn't a wagon body.

If you don't do this well, you will actually be making the car LESS safe from a rear end impact.

The whole point of the recall for installing the plastic gas tank shield (I call it a prayer cloth) was to put something NON-metallic in between the gas tank and the differential, to stop a potential spark from crushing/deforming metal igniting the gas in the event of a severe enough rear impact that the tank and differential made contact.

If you add extra metal pieces BEHIND the gas tank (which is basically anything between it and the rear bumper on the sedan models), and don't do it in a very well designed and well executed way, there will be a high potential for whatever you are adding to contribute to rupturing the gas tank directly as soon as the rear end of the car starts to accordian inwards.

If there was an easy retroactive fix for the earlier cars, (not a band-aid solution such as the shield), even if Ford didn't come up with one, it would have been done at the time by some smart aftermarket people. Due to the very high number of Pintos sold, there would have been a big market for this, but they all stayed away from it because of the potential liability aspect. That should tell you something.

goodolboydws · « **Reply #13 on:** July 24, 2006, 09:46:43 AM »

P.S. If you want some weight for winter traction, a better idea is a bag or 2 of sand or gravel. Helps with traction and can help you afterwards if you get stuck. (And it doesn't do the knd of damage to the car bags of salt would do if you forget and leave it in all year.)

joecool85 · « **Reply #14 on:** July 24, 2006, 10:43:41 AM »

I plan on relocating the battery to trunk, reinforcing the rear area, and having sand in the back during the winter months. I guess I should have told you guys that in about 2-4 years I am planning on starting a hotrod shop. I'm not a noob to cars and frame building etc, just to pintos.

oldkayaker · « **Reply #15 on:** July 24, 2006, 11:21:11 AM »

I had the factory recall stuff added to my 71. From distant memory, I believe the dealer said the plastic shield was to prevent the gas tank form being punctured by sharp edges of the rear end when the tank is pushed forward. Also part of the recall was a longer fill pipe. This made it more unlikely that the tank would be separated from the pipe when the tank is pushed forward (preventing another gas spill source). My 71 was rear ended and totalled but did not spill a drop of gas.

To minimize your exposure, the wagons are stronger in the rear. They have structural members (frame) on both sides of the tank (less likely to crush the tank). The 71 and 72 sedans have nothing around the tank. The 73 sedan has a member but only on the fill pipe side of the tank. I looked under a 79 sedan and it had members behind and on both sides of the tank.

Have fun with your project.

joecool85 · « **Reply #16 on:** July 24, 2006, 12:34:01 PM »

I noticed from 1971 till 1975 each pinto gained about 100lbs or so each year. My guess is most of it was in the rear end.

dirt track demon · « **Reply #17 on:** July 25, 2006, 04:06:10 PM »

Considering the amount of force it is going to take to cause the tank to hit the axle, you are probably as likely to break your neck as to explode anyway. Considering how much hype there was about this issue compared to the very few that actually exploded, it ws all a bunch of crap in my opinion. a little over 100 exploded cars versus the millions of them that were made. I spun out once at about 60 mph and rear ended a rock wall and im still here. drove the car home too. ( it was a trunk model)

The class my dirt tracker ran in, required factory fuel tanks in factory location, the amusing thing was, people would wipe out to avoid rear ending me.

onefarmer · « **Reply #18 on:** July 25, 2006, 06:56:46 PM »

Quote from: joecool85 on July 23, 2006, 05:06:00 PM

I was hoping that when I have kids I would be able to have them in the back without much issue.

When I was about 14 my parents were looking at MII's and Pintos. My long legs fit the Pinto back seat much better then the MII. We ended up with a new 77 Pinto that went over 125k before it was sold.

I got my own 77P when I was 17. Loved it

goodolboydws · « **Reply #19 on:** July 25, 2006, 07:13:23 PM »

Hey farmer,

The questions are, how tall were you at 14, and how short are your parents? I'll bet that they didn't have the FRONT seats back all the way, or close to it. or you wouldn't be talking about how your long legs fit well in the rear of the car. Or maybe you sat back there alone or sideways exclusively? On the other hand, at 14, a lot of guys are still skinny and don't have any butt to speak of, so that helps.

I'm barely 6' and I know that I was never comfortable, legroom-wise in the rear seat of any Pinto that I've owned, ('71, '77, '79), at least if I had the front seat slid anywhere near to fully back. Good thing that I was driving 99.44% of the time and riding shotgun the rest of the time.

The '67 Mustang Fastback I had was just as bad on that score.

onefarmer · « **Reply #20 on:** July 26, 2006, 07:46:51 AM »

I was 6' both of my parents were 5'9". I did sit side ways alot but I remember testing the MII and the Pinto, both must have been '77s, The Pinto had more room back there. I am an only child so I didn't have to share the back seat all the time. But if a friend rode along I still didn't feel crowded. Guess it was a good thing my parents weren't 6' also. Just my memories of the time, it has been a while ~30yrs
If you don't have kids yet, it will be a while before they are 6' and you need to worry about their leg room

joecool85 · « **Reply #21 on:** July 26, 2006, 08:52:21 PM »

Quote from: onefarmer on July 26, 2006, 07:46:51 AM

If you don't have kids yet, it will be a while before they are 6' and you need to worry about their leg room

Thats what I was thinking. Good to know.

k_harvic_29 · « **Reply #22 on:** August 05, 2006, 11:42:38 PM »

I posted in another "Pinto.com" forum that said that if you were meant to blow up and burn to death in a wreck, it would happen in almost any car. I owned a '75 Pinto that was such a rustbucket that when I slammed the doors shut, peaces of the bodywork fell off. But I NEVER worried about blowing up. I currently drive a 1991 CHEVROLET Cavalier and the petrol tank is almost exactly where the Pinto's were. And you have to look at the poor quality of materials they use in cars there days.

So I say... "don't worry about burning alive in your Pinto. If it happens, it happens."

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Author Topic: Looking at getting a pinto, have questions (Read 6415 times)

grgic

grgic