PINTO CAR CLUB of AMERICA
Welcome to FordPinto.com, The home of the PCCA => General Help- Ask the Experts... => Topic started by: Back in Blue on January 21, 2012, 02:13:53 PM
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Ok so I have a 78 Pinto with the Cologne V6 from the factory. The car runs pretty good (sluggish carb, needs rebuild) but now it has a head gasket going out and starting to smoke!!!! It's only getting worse. My mechanic says it'll be about $2000 to do the head gaskets, do a carb rebuild and tune up stuff. I CAN do the job myself, but my back is kinda screwed up, so I was hoping to hand the job off.
Does his price sound kind of on the high side or not???
Any opinions will be appreciated
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Ya that's high. I wouldn't mind doing that for ya if you were close. I could see the cost being somewhere close to that IF you were doing a total rebuild on the heads and doing some other major repairs but it sounds like you just need head gaskets and some minor repairs. What he may be doing is shooting high just in case something goes wrong and it takes him twice as long to do it. I've never done heads on a V6 like those but it's easy enough to do. Rebuilding a carb sometimes is easy...sometim es a royal pain in the wazoo. The tune up part would be easy since the top end is coming off. If I were to price just that on labor alone it would be in the $500 range plus parts. As long as nothing went terribly wrong and I didn't run into any snags that's what I'd do it for. But that's me doing it out of my garage and taking my time and not being in a big rush. One issue is that you just don't know what your going to run into on something that old. It could be taken apart and find a cracked head or something else. You just never know.
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I agree too Pricey$$ Its not a very hard fix, I would put that repair in the 1,000.00 area? depending on what is found after head removal.
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Thanks! You are confirming my thoughts about the pricing
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I'd find someone cheaper to do the head gasket, and do the carb yourself. You can sit down at a big table and do it over a few days, shouldn't be too bad on your back I'd hope but I don't know your situation. I spent about 17 hours in 2 days doing mine since I'd never rebuilt a carb before. Regardless, that pricing is really high.
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Thats way high of a price... your looking 700-900 for heads, and about 80-100 for the carb rebuild. The V6 isnt too bad on head gaskets. Ive done the ones on my old bobcat when my dad owned it. didnt take us too long. Since my cousin owns a shop out here its easy for me to get price assesments at normal cost out the door at his shop. no family discount lol.. youd be looking at around 1100 after tax here in AZ. not sure where you are at.
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Actually I wouldn't mind having that car as is :) So where you located B in B
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^---- LOL,
Seriously though I have the same engine as you, and probably the same carb. Mine is the Holley two barrel. In never been rebuilt shape, I just take it apart and stick the pieces in a gallon of carb cleaner for a few hours (if its needed). That is the longest part of it. After that it takes maybe a hour to put it back together on a bad day. Check out this guys youtube channel he shows you how to do it.... http://www.youtube.com/user/MikesCarburetor?feature=watch (http://www.youtube.com/user/MikesCarburetor?feature=watch)
As far as the heads go, I think $500 to $900 is fair according to the labor charges in your area. If you don't need the car back right away look into having it done at a tech school or High school auto mechanics program. It would help some kids to learn and save you a little money to boot.
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...High school auto mechanics program. It would help some kids to learn and save you a little money to boot.
Be careful with this. I would not have trusted 90% of the kids in the autos class in my high school. There were a couple engines sitting around they pulled apart and never managed to get back together correctly. There only people I trusted in it to mount tires were 2 of my friends.
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My experience was just the opposite, I was also in Auto Mechanics in High School. Ours was a ASE certified program that participated in nationwide mechanical competitions. Maybe that made us a little more serious about our projects?
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Thanks to everybody for the advice!!! )I'm gonna go get the Pinto and do it myself!! You've given me inspiration to git er done.......
The auto tech class idea is not a bad one as I am a former high school shop teacher and I know what kids can accomplish. But it's a crap shoot. When I was in high school I went to Vocational Tech for mechanics grades 11 and 12. We rebuilt a killer chevy small block ran great on the stand, then some asshol came along and dropped some sheet metal screws down the carb and you know what happened next... Thanks again everyone.!!