Greetings Pinto owners! My name is Rob Young from Dallas. Although I am somewhat new to this site, I am nowhere new to Pintos.
I promised an intro a while back so here it is... I also include the recent work done on the car, bringing it back to better life!
My mom had bought a 1978 Pony Sedan brand new from Town East Ford back in 1978. She specially ordered it STRIPPED! It had no options whatsoever - the cheapest, lightest, most trouble-free one you could get then... Medium Chestnut metallic paint, black dash, tan interior, 2.3L with 4-on-the-floor. She traded a 1970 Galaxie 500 with a 429 and I still don't forgive her!! hehe... Pictures can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelonerider2005/sets/72157603769350277/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelonerider2005/sets/72157603769350277/)
That old Pinto served my mom until 1986 when she bought a new Olds Cutlass. The Pinto went to my sister for her high-school car and she used it until she got a new hundai back in 1989. I got the Pinto then for my high school car and had it ever since. Surprisingly, it taught 5 people how to drive a standard shift and it still has the original clutch, 152K miles later.
Although I bought a few newer cars since 1989, I wanted to keep the old Pinto since it was very reliable and easy and cheap to maintain myself. It was a good backup and loaner car, too (although I do not loan it (or any of my cars) out any more)...
It has been in 6 wrecks and was totalled 4 times due to crappy dallas drivers... It was fixed just enough each time to keep it drivable and it still runs good for what it is. None of the body panels in front line up perfectly anymore, nor does the left rear interior trim. The roof has a slight buckle at the top of the windshield.
For those reasons (structural damage), i will not actually restore it, but keep it as a surviving daily driver. It still has the original exhaust system, starter, alternator (with new brushes), regulator, ignition module, clutch, transmission, transmission oil (you heard right!), axle, rear suspension, interior, and more.
Front left seat and carpet are trashed, but other seats are okay, tho faded. Headliner needs restitching in the center and the right sunvisor needs welding. Dash is still an amazing 9 out of 10 - no cracks! That silicon spray stuff and folding sunshades DO help! We used them mainly because it makes the car cooler and there is no A/C...
In all it has been very cheap and easy to run and maintain. If you can work on lawnmowers, then you can work on this - Pintos are simple. I think my mom spent 3000 for this car back in 78 and since we have every repair, oil change, and PM on record, we all spent a total of about 3500 on all tires, batteries, repairs and maintanence (only excluding oil changes) throughout its 31 year life so far - not bad!
It has left me stranded only once, back on Feb 29, 2000 when i neglected to replace the timing belt at the correct interval. After ~65K miles, it jumped a tooth and the engine died. My fault, entirely, and it was a cheap belt, too... The ignition switch lock froze up at an ex GF's house 10 years ago, but I was able to change it there without issue.
Back in 2003, I decided i would keep the car a while longer and I rebuilt the ENTIRE front end - by myself! It needed ball joints, but I decided to go all the way while it was apart. It was not too bad of a project either... It drove like any new car in its class (or one above!) afterwards. I had added a front sway bar 20 years ago and that improved handling a lot.
I have just finished replacing all of the rotten door and window weatherstripping...
There is a noticable difference in reduced body flexing and door / window rattling with new seals! Topsdown.com provided the custom Pinto seals which fit quite well. However, since this car was involved in a bad frontal crash back in '87, there was extensive chassis damage and even the roof had shifted a quarter inch or so. As a result, the seal on the right door had to be modified and additional weatherstrip has to be added int he window areas to provide a tight seal.
The trunk seal was replaced a few weeks after. This has not been reproduced (through my research), so i improvised...
My main project car is a 1972 Olds 442 clone convertible and I noticed the trunk seal on it is similar! So I bought one for that car (GM A-body) for only 15 bucks and installed it on the Pinto. It is the Metro brand, about 17' long. I used only about 9' of it on the tiny Pinto trunk. This brand has two hollow section, which makes it very soft and pliable.
The old 30+ year-old seal had to be scraped out with popsicle sticks with sharp "edges" cut into them like a chisel. This helped protect the paint. Razor blades took the thick sections out. I also had to reshape some sheetmetal back there, as it was still buckled slightly from three rear-end wrecks long ago. There is no channel to insert the weatherstrip in (just one lip) and no clips. Therefore the entire seal must be glued on with 3M black weatherstrip cement, all the way around on the bottom and lip of the sheetmetal. This would need to be done even with a factory NOS seal. It was tedious, but it went well. I left the lid open an hour after it all dried and it stayed in place well. The lid was hard to get closed for a week or two, but now it closes like it did when new and it seems to seal well - I had no leakage through the past several rains!
The tale of the dreaded headlight switch:
"May my misfortunes be entertainment to others!" Headlight switch headaches - the repair of one minor thing leads to the destruction of a major...
Does any car made have an easily-accessible headlight switch? Out of 3 cars I have ever worked on, the HL switches are all in the most unaccessible part of the dash. The instrument clusters had to come out in all three cases.
Just recently I had to replace the headlight switch in the 78 Pinto, as it had developed the flashing headlight syndrome (bad internal circuit breaker).
It WAS a dark and windy night and my rechargable flashlight kept going dead.......
The HL switch was at the very lower left of the dash, but it was totally enclosed by steel brackets with inaccessible bolts. I tried loosening some but failed. What was the guy on who designed this mess??
So, the instrument cluster had to come out... Just remove two screws and pop the speedo cable - easy huh? I pulled the screws and pushed the speedo release clip and gave a light tug...
"This is the way the cluster crumbles!!"
A tug on the cable yielded a hideous CRUNCH, like the first chew of a mouthful of Pringles... The back plastic cover of the instrument cluster came apart like a dollar watch...
I knew the last time I had this out 10 years ago, it was not in the best shape but I never thought it would self destruct in my hands like this.
The simple weight of the speedo cause it to crumble more as I tilted it up to clear the steering wheel.
Well this explains why none of the idiot lights and cluster lights worked anymore - all electrical contacts on the flex-circuit were lost as there was no backup material. It had lots of rattles, as it was all loose inside. This plastic feels about like a thin hard cookie and crumbles like one also.
BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE (bad luck)!
I squeezed the new HL switch back in and finally got the bezel screwed on (I could have used 3 hands...) I then found that the knob and shaft would not stay in the switch! #&@#^$#!
I pulled the bezel, yanked the switch out, and found the knob and shaft went in and secured fine. #&@#^$#!#&@#^$#! I pulled the knob and shaft, I fought the little #&@#^$#! back in there and secured it. #&@#^$#! shaft still would not stay in again!!
#&@#^$#!#&@#^$#!#&@#^$#!#!#&@#^$#!#&@#^$#!
I ripped the thing out again and forcefully pulled the knob off of shaft. Pushed shaft in switch - shaft stayed in switch. Crammed switch back in and secured it. Shaft stayed in. Pushed knob on shaft and surprisingly, it all stayed together and it even worked right this morning! What the heck is up with all that?! I guess the Ford Gods are against me. Geez... "In Olds I Trust..."
CLUSTER F---ED...
A quick internet search showed that this is a 99% problem in all of these clusters - it was a poorly made plastic that easily deteriorates - it looks like polystyrene to me... Noone reproduces these and even rare NOS ones for 100 bucks + will have that problem... Until I find a solution, a new temporary speedo housing was built out of cardboard. I call it a prototype...
I got the Ford cluster apart very carefully (it pretty much fell apart) and only the back white cover is crumbly. The rest of it was fine.
I passed up any possiblity to glue or coat it, as you can see how much it crumbled just by removing the flex circuit and fuel gauge.
I finally got on this forum to see if anyone could help.
Luckily a member here sold me a spare (wow!) cluster and allowed me to get my dash looking better!
When I received it, I removed the back cover which was very much intact and washed it good. Now it does show signs of deterioration in its infant stages...
I heard of coating these covers with PVC cement, but I figured I had something even better - POR15!
So I painted one coat of POR15 clear on my old crumbly cover using a cotton swab, just to see if it helped. The next day I realized that it increased the strength of the cover about 3X. SOOOooo, I painted two coats on the new cover, front and back. I took care in not filling screw holes or the connector slots. It feels heavier now and much stronger!
That weekend it was all reassembled with great success.
It was sure nice to see it light up at night again and have all the idiot lights working!!
Wow, Rob, GREAT writeup!! I urged Rob yesterday to submit a post explaining who he was and what he had, on the heels of some messaging in the "Pinto names" thread where Texas members were mentioned.
The rest of the story - as you all know, I have a '76 wagon, in Medium chestnut brown metallic, and tan interior. Aside from the dash (black), Rob's car is identical for color and materials (and two years newer). We both own Texas cars, he lives a few miles from me, he works at a large company that I used to....strange world!!
Rob is my newest best friend ;D.
Thanks for sharing Rob, like I said, when we get them in the driveway together, I'll snap a shot and post here. What a hoot!!
Chris
:welcome: and thanks for posting. My Pinto too has 156K... minus the original clutch, which was replaced in '06. It did have the original tailpipe up until a leak caused me to replace it. Really realiable cars actually.
-beegle55
I feel like I"m reading the story of my own car! lol! Down to the mother buying it new in 78 and the car teaching several siblings to drive a stick, and further down to body panels not lining up!
Very nice story, I love reading these.
Nice to meet a fellow 78 Sedan owner! You should see chuck replying to this thread soon too.....:P
Thank you for the welcome, guys! :)
This little car has made a lot of history in our family. My mom keeps trying to convince me to get rid of it, but considering the paltry 600 bucks I would get, I would just keep driving it. As time goes on, I am slowly getting it back in better shape, though not restored. Each thing I did lately has made such a big improvement to the car, it makes even LESS sense to get rid of it. I am amazed how well it drives now!
I know it is WAY out of place here in Dallas with all the faddy and high $$ cars, but all I can think is that it is reliable, paid for since day 1, and will have outlived all these complex new cars. I always find it ammusing to drive through the posh neighborhoods with it... ;D
As some have realized, I enjoy writing too.
If interested, feel free to check out my main Oldsmobile resto project here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robsalbum/sets/72157602930020786/
Dave, I need to hear your story some time...
Rob, how did you write that without running out of time? Maybe it's just my idiot computer but every time I try to write something long it gets erased and the screen says I "ran out of time".
Great story about your little warrior. I like driving my '74 in posh neighborhoods too... ;D
..."posh neighborhoods"... ::)
You know, seeing exotic cars (Ferraris, Astons, Lamborghinis) around these places is >always< cool, BUT, I'd easily put my money on Pintos being more rare than those cars....
...which is one of the many reasons it's great to have one. :P
Chris
I would much rather have a car that you cannot obtain with a little credit and signing some papers at a dealer. I like old stuff and I am a unique person, so I want something different that demands attention. Old cars (and other stuff) will always be a way of life for me. :) I want to be able to work on them, too, if needed...
The main reason i want to keep this car (other than it being in our family since new) is to prove a point on how long the old stuff can last, given some BASIC maintanence. No love and affection, just common-sense PM now and then. A new car would become too much of a pain to try to run for 30+ years...
blupinto,
I just copy and pasted from a journal I have been keeping. I just started one for the Pinto and my Olds one is about 30 pages+ already! :hypno:
Thanks for the timeout forewarning!
I was talking to a friend at work the other day. He was admiring my Pinto and it occured to me that this Pinto was truly American-made. What modern-day American car can really claim that anymore? I've had to replace a fuel and a water pump, the timing belt, some hoses... but other than that she's all American baby! Well, then there's the tires...
What I love about these old gems is they're not only scarce, but an average person can work on them. And yes, I confess to giving my Wildfire love and affection! :-* :hypno: :surprised: :) ;) :D ;D :lol:
Well, thanks for the introduction, Dave! ;)
Hello Rob! :welcome: to the corral!
I've heard a bit about you already from Popbumper. I read your tale and we also have much in common, but I have had it just a bit better I guess. I have a 1978 Pinto sedan that was also wrecked in front and put back together. I too have had my cluster out (more than once) but I got lucky I guess. My cluster is still in one piece! My car came from a good friend who was the original owner's daughter. She also happened to be my sister-in-law's mom's roommate. So the car has been around me for quite a while. It was spared the dreaded 'learning to drive' duty, it's always been adult owned, so that helps.
Chuck :afro:
:welcome: Rob!
I enjoyed reading about you and your Pinto! Will look forward to more posts from you.
Dwayne :smile:
Many thanks for the additional welcomes! :)
My next big project will be the second valve stem seal replacement and radiator repair and coolant flush. My car has the ORIGINAL HEATER HOSES on it because I did not want to pull the heater box out from under the dash... Is that how you change the hoses?? I have a bypass hose with clamps in the trunk in case of a rupture.
blupinto - I had heard the manual 78 tranny was German made - any fact or fiction on this? ???
-Rob
Ohhhh, I've never had a Pinto older than a '74, and none that were stick-shift, so I don't know about the manuals being made in Germany. Chuck might know. I am flattered you asked, though... ;)
Hold on, Rob. I looked in my Haynes Pinto book ('75-'80) and sure enough it says the manual tranny is "of German manufacture". So it's not a rumor. ;D
Rob stopped over last night, and '76 wagon got to meet '78 sedan. Rob took some pics, I will post later today when I resize them. We had a nice meeting, and he took my son and I for a ride. What fun!
Chris