Those of you that were at Carlisle 2006 know of my Pinto, and saw her there. You also know how she died on the way home 130 miles outside Columbus, Ohio. Well, I sorta left her for dead in the driveway from October 2006 until late 2007. I decided to go to Carlisle this year, so I started to do some serious work to the car.
I was planning on changing the transmission that was slipping on the way to Carlisle 2006, when I noticed the car ws running very flat. I pulled the valve cover to find a badly worn camshaft.
It seemed the further I got into the job the more I found wrong. Original hoses from 1977, bad gaskets, leaking front seals, you name it I had to replace it.
While I had the top end apart I went ahead and painted every part, and carefully put it all back together. It got a rebuilt distributor, all new gaskets, roller cam & lifters, new timing belt, exhaust manifold,and new valve cover. New muffler is coming soon.
That was late December, early January, and I then left the car sit until it was warm enough to work on. The car wsa outside and I couldn't work on the car in the freezing cold.
Today I went ahead and drained the oil, added clean oil, new filter and a bottle of engine flush, when I hears what sounded like knocking when cranking. I am currently going to pull the oil pan to check out the noise. Can't tell too much since the car has no exhaust & I can't hear it. Originally I was going to pull the oil pan to clean out the oil pan after I flushed the engine to get the coolant out of the engine oil after I pulled the head.
That leads me to now. The car is sitting in the driveway with the battery disconnected, with no oil. I also went ahead and did some minor body work to the badly rusted passenger door to get the car looking better. I am going to have to replace the door, but until then I'm just doing some patchwork to it.
I plan on posting some pictures of the car as she sits now, waiting for me to do more work. The Interior is partially apart so I can repaint the dash, and reinstall the steering wheel I have for the car. When it comes down to it I am getting the car ready for Carlisle, and do whatever it takes to get there safely.