Well..., with my recent purchase of the 8" rearend and summer off (I'm a college instructor) the reality of my Turbo Pinto is on the verge of commencing. The sad part is my '88 Turbo Coupe will be no more.
A lot of donor cars are some rusted buy-out that the user has no attachment to. This is not my case. I bought this car for $1,500 when the going rate was $6,000. I drove this car daily for 10 years and thouroughly enjoyed it.
The story goes as such:
I see the car in the paper, call, look at and drive it. It was a salvaged vehicle and bent right at the wheel wells. Strangely the rest of the back of the car was straight. When I approach the lady for the sale she tells me some guy on the phone just offered her $2,000. She says if it doesn't go through then I can have it at the listed $1,500.
I go home and an hour goes by. She doesn't call me back and I assume it was bought. My wife prompts me to call. The husband answers and gets the wife on the phone. She is P.O-ed because "Mr.$2,000" now wants to only pay $1,500. In fact he has offered her $1,600 and she is holding for the $2,000 he said he would pay. So, P.O-ed is she that she forgoes his $1,600 and 'then and there' grants me the car at $1,500. At some point later in my ownership the car was hit and I received $1,400 for the damage. So, basically $100 bought me a great car for 10 years of use. I only had to replace the passenger door (matching color) for $30.
I basically fixed the bend over the wheel wells by heating the frame rails and pressing it straight. Even the trunk was reusable and the bumper (deep cave-in on center) was fixed with hot water and a weight to straighten it.
I loved this car, it was comfortable, quiet, fast, handled like a go-kart and got decent mileage. The interior is still decent save for the rat stink (from sitting) and the body has a few waves in it. It still runs well. There is no rust.
In the end it was Calif. smog laws that put it out to pasture. Well..., that and a number of "little things." I can probably buy a better TC for less than it would cost to bring this one back. So, now it's soul will live on in the Pinto. My $100 will continue to go a "longer way." I just can't pull it apart until I give this car its "due."
This is a donor car with a heart. One that's still beating.
Tom
Awesome.
Learn from my mistakes... make sure you mark your wiring harness when you start to disassemble it. It makes this go MUCH easier when you put it back together.
FYI, If you have the 140mph gauge cluster, you can sell that for a decent price and make some more $$ back.
Oddly enough my Mazda 323 daily drive has the 140 MPH speedo. The T/C has the 85 MPH speedo. Go figure. I was actually going to try and modify the T/C gauge cluster to the Pinto dash. It might protrude a bit, but if I bezel it right it should still look decent. I like to fabricate so I like these challenges.
Thanks, yes, I will document everything possible.
Tom
Well, I'm trying to shoehorn Merkur and T-Bird gauges into a Pinto cluster. :o
http://www.fordpinto.com/smf/index.php/topic,7868.0.html (http://www.fordpinto.com/smf/index.php/topic,7868.0.html)
Let us know how it goes.