I just wanted to give everyone an update on my newest Pinto –
“Sam” is a 1975 yellow(ish) sedan which I bought about 7 months ago after my beloved 1976 sedan “Zeal” gave up on me. I’ve been keeping in touch with a few Pinto.com users, but have yet to make a public post about Sam. Sorry for the delay :]
So here we go!
First off, to those who attended Fun Ford Sunday at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo, CA back in September( Mike, Joe, Fran and Chris) - I just wanted to say thanks for being so awesome, I probably could have gawked at your pintos all day (literally), plus it was fun chit chatting and sharing ideas with ya’ll. I’ll defiantly be meeting up with all of you when the next car show rolls around, without a doubt. And next time, I’ll have a Pinto with me!
Now let’s start from the beginning –
A couple years ago my cousin (PintoPower) found a cute lil’ 76 V6 Pinto for me to adopt. It was a complete disaster, the interior (what was left of it) was covered in what we decided was “fat man grease” and it stunk of something completely unidentifiable . It was covered in stickers, the doors wouldn’t close properly, it rattled, it shook, it puttered and it stalled. (Did I mention it was/is smashed too?). I recall cleaning what I thought was a rubber button, but in fact was a chrome knob that was covered in layers and layers of gunk… Gross!! The poor little car didn’t seem to want to continue in life, but we didn’t give up hope, and worked what seemed like endless hours to get it into running condition. We seriously had 6 people working on this car at one time, and thanks to them, Zeal was up and running in no time. We scrubbed the whole car, I replaced the gross interior with nice interior out of one of Alberto’s spare part wagons, the brakes and shocks were replaced, a new heater core was installed, plus little odds n’ ends were added and fixed. Alberto was nice enough to replace the smashed back bumper with a nice spare he had (Thanks! =] )
We made our way home from LA to Vacaville (near Sacramento) where Zeal spent the next two years, cheerfully escorting me and my friends around. It was well known in town (partly due to a mural painted on the back) and I soon became the “girl with the Pinto”. Sadly though, back in March, Zeal’s transmission unexpectedly gave out and since then, the car has been an enormously huge lawn gnome.
Which brings us to Sam –
After about a month and a half of attempting to find a decent transmission and of moping around the house, I stumbled upon a Pinto for sale in a nearby city. I inquired about it and a few weeks later had a new friend parked outside. Although Zeal showed very little excitement over its new buddy, I was ecstatic. Sam was in nearly perfect shape, the body was immaculate, the paint was actually shiny and the interior, for the most part, was in good condition. It wasn’t too soon after I had bought it that we realized the engine would have to be replaced or rebuilt. The search for a new engine began and after buying one engine and having to send it back because the dipstick was in the wrong location, we found the right engine (2300cc by the way). The engine bay was cleaned and painted, all the miscellaneous and major parts were either cleaned or replaced. While all the mechanical aspects were being considered - I installed brand new carpet, cleaned all the seats, treated the panels and replaced the back dash (new wood which I upholstered with vinyl). So here we are, 7 months later. We started the engine up for the first time just a few days ago and took it for a spin. I got to say, it runs like a gem. We still have some finishing touches to do, which includes new white wall tires, but all the hard work and time put into this car was well worth it.
enjoy!
