Hi There
I have a 75 pinto and have been looking at ads for new racks and they show a 70-72 pinto rack and a 74-78 pinto/mustang 11 rack.....i know the 70-72 rack has 2 bolt holes on the drivers side one on the top and one on the bottom.and will not fit my car....anyways the rack that they show for a 74-78 pinto it has two holes in the rack one on each side....ok my stock rack has 3 holes one on each side of the steering snout and then one on the passengers side....my question is ( i havn't measured yet) do you just use the 2 holes on the newer style rack.........thanks in advance
Garry,
There are only 3 type of steering racks for the ford pinto. One is the '71-72 style. ONLY the 1973 chassis had the odd rack with the large vertically attached strap mount on one end, and the 72 style strap on the other end. The last one is the 74-80 3 hole rack used on the 4 cylinder cars. I'm not sure if the V6 Pinto and or V6& V8 MII has a different number of rack mounting holes.
Your car should be a 3 hole rack if it's a 4 cylinder.
Hope this helps...
Pintosopher
Quote from: pintosopher on January 13, 2009, 12:08:28 PM
Garry,
There are only 3 type of steering racks for the ford pinto. One is the '71-72 style. ONLY the 1973 chassis had the odd rack with the large vertically attached strap mount on one end, and the 72 style strap on the other end. The last one is the 74-80 3 hole rack used on the 4 cylinder cars. I'm not sure if the V6 Pinto and or V6& V8 MII has a different number of rack mounting holes.
Your car should be a 3 hole rack if it's a 4 cylinder.
Hope this helps...
Pintosopher
Yes it is a 3 hole rack, i have no idea what motor it had in it as it is a 1/4 drag car now and i bought it already set up.....i bought a flaming river rack which i just got and it was ordered as a 74-78 mustang 11 slash pinto rack...but it only has two holes in the flaming river rack i tried to see if the holes line up with the flaming river rack and not use the extra hole and it lines up perfectly....i just am curious if anybody else has done this swap and that is what you do is just use the 2 hole rack or what...........thanks for any help
Just talk to a company that builds cars race and street and they told me that when they replace the 3 hole racks with the new flaming river rack that has two holes they just bolt them on and have no problems with them....thanks
I have a '72 pinto that i run a quarter mile oval, its rack is toast from some car to car contact. My question is first, would a 74-80 pinto/mII rack fit? And second, what are the differences in ratio.
Garry: My original rack on my 76 had 3 holes. The new unit only had two holes but it bolts up just fine as long as you use a 74-80 style rack. The 71-72 and 73 style racks will not work without modification that i am describing below.
Bates77: No a 74-80 rack will not fit on a 72. The holes are about 1/2 inch off sideways from the 74-80 pinto racks. I suppose you could elongate the holes and make it work but you'd have to elongate the holes on both sides about 1/4" to make it centered, and even then the rack could be too wide or too narrow for the older suspension.
I got the new rack from flaming river for 74-78 mustang 11 which has two holes like you mention and i installed and didn't use the third hole, everything lines up perfect....installed the new tubular upper A arms but the bottom A arms i am taking back and going to use Heidt's original style tubular A arms...the ones i am taking back don't use a strut rod and are mounted on the outside of the crossmember and the frame would have to be notched, a hole drilled in the cross member and a sleeve welded in and also the rack would have to be moved out..........the place i bought them said nothing about all this work until after i bought them and i am trying to return them but they want a 25% restocking fee and all they did was take them off there shelf.....crooks.....the new qa1 coil over shocks for the front should be here on Friday........i hate waiting on parts as i live in Alberta Canada and anything like that has to come from the USA...and nobody stocks it here