OK, and Hi to you all! After reading several of the posts in this category, I thought I would start a subject regarding my first 'project car', the 1977 CW. Several members of this site are also members of the United Ford Owners, a car club dedicated to the Ford enthusiast and based in central Ohio. I am the club's secretary and newsletter editor, and my wife takes care of the membership.
Some of the members have Pinto's, and I always wanted to own one of the Cruising Wagons, I used to go test drive these from local dealers when they were new. Couldn't afford one then, I was just out of high school, but I always thought they were way cool.
So on June 30th, 2005 a group of us went to a salvage yard owned by one of our members. I took my truck [to haul back parts they bought] with a car hauler trailer attached [in case they went nuts], never expecting I'd come back with a Pinto. When we got to the yard, out back were several Pinto's and there among them was the one I now own. The car came from NC, the story goes that a friend of the yard's owner had to buy two to get the one he wanted, and asked the yard owner to buy the other. The car is solid, with no bodywork or rust thru's, and is complete minus all the gauges and some interior parts. The headliner is torn, but the seats are in decent shape. Car has a lot of stuff inside of it, including the entire exhaust system, all the windows from a window wagon, and, interestingly enough, a nearly new HP computer, complete with monitor, keyboard, speakers and mouse still in the original boxes. [I hooked this all up several days ago, it works great!] The car also had the original slotted rims, and when I cleaned the junk out of it and looked at the spare, there was another slotted rim on the spare tire!
I'll post more on this project most every day until I get caught up to the here and now, then as I progress I'll add more.
Hello UFOSteVieZ,
Nice SCORE!!!
Keep the group updated on your progress.
From Pintony
Yaaaaa!!!!! Cool!!!!!!! Go for it!!!!!!!!!! Pictures!!!!!!!!!! I'm rooting for ya!!!!!!!!!!
High_Horse
UPDATE: First of all, it was July 30th that we went to the yard, not June 30th, my bad. Also, the car is a 2.3L auto, no air, and it either has pwr steering and manual brakes, or vice versa, I haven't been under the hood much yet except to vacuum out the carburetor. Looks like some squirrel was living in the breather and he musta been a bachelor, cause what a mess. Probably used the carb as a toilet.....
TIRES AND RIMS
Anyway......Jacked up the car Aug 3rd and put her up on stands [needed two more, met r4pinto at his place of employment]. Removed the wheels and tires, all dry rotted, natch. Took them to local Firestone dealer, he unmounted tires and disposed of them for me-no charge. [Ka-ching!] Rims looked good, 'cept they were white from oxidation, most of the painted stripe was worn away, and only 3 of the 5 had the nylon inserts for the center cap. 2 didn't, and guess what? Yep, three broken off screws in each. Okay, NP, I'll drill em out. Yea, right. What the hell are these made of, titanium?? What a mess. Broken drill bits, big time frustration. Bought some 'super' drill bits for drilling hard metals. Snap. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Took them to a friends garage, drill press. No deal. You could hear the screws laughing at me. Another friends workshop. Now this guys determined [another Pinto owner] Only thing that would touch the screws was carbide tipped dremel type bits, so we wear a mess of them out. Chucked em up in his press, now some progress!! Snap. Good luck getting the head of a dremel bit outta that hole, certainly ain't drilling it out. Long story short: four hours drilling out 3 screws outta one rim. Ended up drilling around the screws, punching them out, and countersinking the holes front and rear, like an hourglass shape. Then filling with a metal based epoxy, drilling, and inserting nylon drywall anchors. He spent three hours drilling out the second rim.
Inside of the rims was a mess, used a wire brush to clean these up, then painted the backsides black, to contrast with the front, which I polished up with Mothers Aluminum polish. Friend had four decent center caps that had the centers intact, mine were cracked or missing. Freebie!! Owe him a couple dinners, for sure. Repainted the black stripes on the front.
Back to Firestone for some tires, 1.00 over cost on each, plus five mount, balance, and stems. All rims ran true, 4 take a .5 ounce weight, one a .75. $177.00 and the tires and rims are done!!
started Aug 04 finished Aug 13
I liked the squirrel in the breather part.....wait till you get to the ants in the rearend part. Nice wheels...Don't give up.
yup been there done that. I have a set of wheel in the garage with the screws drilled out awating to have the inserts installed. They are also in need a good polishing. Yours came out quite nice!
Hey UFOSteVieZ,
WOW your rims turned out NICE!!!!!! SWEET!!!!!
The best pat of the factory Pinto wheel is they are Forged aluminum not Cast.
They clean-up great!!!!
I polished a whole set by hand on my 74.
Otside for 3 years and they still look great!
If I ever go back to 13" wheels on my '74 I'll have another set of those wheels. they look especially good with 205/60's on them :o I had them on the '80 runabout I owned in 90-93.
I'm running 195/60-14(FT) 225/60-14(RE) on my '74 at the moment... gives it a nice rake... not as nice as the rake on Brad's Pangras or Pintony's '72...but still slick
Thank you for the kind words.
From Pintony
Yea,I was with Steve when he bought the car.For a car thats been sitting around for years in a bone yard it is in great shape.It just needs some TLC to be a great car.With some help from his friends this C/W will be ready for next years Carlisle event.I'm hoping to get back down to the bone yard and snag an A/C unit out of a Bobcat and hopefully come home with a 77 wagon that is sitting in the yard. ;)
Thanks all who posted for the encouragement and kind words regarding the wheels, they did come out very nice, and I did hand polish them.
Pintoman: Sounds like I need to hitch up the trailer again?? :laugh:
Remember what TLC stands for?? Truck Loads of Cash :-\