PINTO CAR CLUB of AMERICA
Shiny is Good! => Your Project => Topic started by: dholvrsn on September 13, 2007, 10:24:56 PM
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The engine swap started yesterday, sort of. Mainly removed the old manifolds and mocked up everything with the turbo manifolds on the old engine, trying to see how everything fits. The passenger side fender-well took a goodly sledge hammering. Here's a before picture. two pictures of the mocking up, and one of a pile of parts removed that aren't going back on the car.
I told a coworker about this. He said "If you improve it too much, then it won't be a Pinto no more. It'll be a Palomino!"
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Let the FUN begin!!! :lol:
turbowagonman
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Got the Saab front intercooler mounted on Wee Beastie, plus the turbo EFI wiring and some of the intercooler plumbing mocked in.
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I,m doimg a turbo swap too how much banging did you do was thinking about makeing my own exaust header to move the turbo forward and up would like to keep it under the hood also the blower motor is on the firewall may have toput it off till spring did get an 8.8 rear froma msutang under it 3.55 posi nice
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Update 4/22-23/2008. Getting back to this project.
Almost final VAM and mock-up of intercooler plumbing.
An under fender view of the mock up plumbing. Rear mount is not near final.
"Rubber baby buggy bumpers" used to mount the FMIC as close to the radiator as possible without rubbing.
Computer bracket with a couple of relays under the dash.
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Auxiliary fuse box mounted.
Inertia switch mounted.
Battery holder for under driver's front fender started.
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While I had everything apart, I replaced the worn-out disks and painted them up like a Riceboy.
Then I finally removed the engine.
Tried to be careful with the transmission. It still managed to leak out a couple of gallons of Type F. Almost the automotive equivalent of the puke gag from Team America. Took a lot of floor dry to sop that up.
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The empty engine bay with two gallons of floor dry underneath sucking up two gallons of Type F.
Found some nasty rust on the front support and did a patch.
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Took a week of anual leave to try to finish up the turbo engine swap by Graffiti Night in Onawa, Iowa. Doesn't look like I'm going to make it. One of those so close and yet so far deals. The guy helping me with the engine couldn't make it out, so I'm trying to button up around that. I'm having serious doubts on whether this is worth the effort.
The engine and underside of hood is all ready to paint.
Detail of heating and modifying the center hood bracket to clear the throttle body bell-crank. Had a chunk of thick sheet metal shielding between the brace and the top of the hood, but it was still nervous going.
The engine compartment all cleaned and masked up and ready to paint. This is sort of a restro from the inside out.
Here's the old Sharpe 775 gun that I inherited. Sort of feel like that novice Chinese carpenter with the expensive wood plane.
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The engine compartment all painted and unmasked, before all that stuff gets reinstalled.
Stopped to smell the roses. Or at least check out the Memorial Day poker run and dance in Soldier, Iowa. Nice sunset to the west. Thunderclouds to the east.
Hope to post more pictures in the next couple of days.
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The engine compartment with the stuff back in it. Also showing what a little chimera Wee Beastie is getting to be.
Passenger's fender well, left to right: VAM with breather (still needing spiffing up, from Merkur), BCS (Merkur), AC relay (Merkur) and BAP (Merkur).
Firewall, L to R: Starter solenoid and mystery device (both original Pinto). Note two wiring harnesses, the original Pinto and the transplanted Merkur. Note hoe the Merkur harness enters the firewall and tees about in the middle. Also a heat shield on the AC manifold and an upgrade to factory power brakes.
Driver's fender well: L to R: EGO solenoid (Merkur), HEI coil (Merkur), voltage regulator (original Pinto), fan relays (Escort, I think), and washer tank (original Pinto and moved back and out slightly to clear the bolt heads of the under fender battery bracket). Removed was original electronic ignition module.
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Fun with aluminum: close up of the aluminum heat shield for the AC manifold.
Also the folded aluminum snorkel that I made for the VAM breather. It come through the front support, right behind the turn signal.
The computer and relays mounted under the dash, waiting for a wiring tidy up.
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looks good man, id love to do a turbo setup on my 2.8 =D but i dont think it would fit unless i did an after cat turbo kit
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Fun with torch mechanicing and boat anchor. (It's funny how the two often go together!) The modified transmission mount to go from slushy old C3 to World Class T-5.
The bottom side. 1/8x3/4 strap was used as webbing and filler.
A Taurus fuel filter and a Walbro pump in a Merkur mount, plus Merkur duck bill plumbing (which isn't what it's quacked up to be!) all under the floor boards under the rear driver's side seat, just inboard of the forward spring shackle.
Last minute hassles with the wrong auxiliary shaft bearings and the wrong pan gaskets is going to cause Wee Beastie to miss Graffiti Night. It would have been sooooo nice! At least I have the world's most beautiful Buick to cruise in. Well, there's next year. Hopefully Wee Beastie will be all painted and some of the grubbier stuff in these photos will get spiffed up.
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Pay special attention to mounting that old pan to the later block, if you don't glue the end pieces real good, they'll push out from lack of clearance. After that happened to me, I just used the rail gaskets and used black RTV silicone for the ends around the seals.
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This project had hit a lull and sort of a strategic retreat as some internal engine parts didn't fit. I recross referenced numbers to find that the engine is from a '85 Merkur XR4Ti and not an '87 like I thought that it was.
Wee Beastie is also in the awkward stage where I'm really tired of it sucking up too much of my spare time and money and intruding on Summer and I'm just forcing the engine swap part to get done just to get it out of my hair. Please, turbo Pinto project, please run and be worth all the effort when I get you together.
A couple of pictures that I forgot to take and post last time and a couple of new ones.
The finished and painted battery tray mounted under the fender.
The underside of the hood repainted.
Three in a long parade of parts that get spray painted in my garage.
The rear louver set that I got for $50.00 when many are going for $300-400 on eBay. I'm using T-nuts and countersunk screws to patch on new hinges.
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Another two days off and another two days of too much quality time with the attempted turbo-Pinto. Got bit by a couple more off-spec auxiliary shaft bearings. Did bolt the windage tray down and sat the pan on top as a place holder.
Had a rainbow after a thunder-boomer to lighten up the mood.
Did mount the electric fan on the radiator and did a lot of not-so-photogenic stuff like tidy up the under dash wiring and the fuel plumbing.
Here's the fan and radiator with a desk full of stuff waiting for that motor to get put together and dropped in.
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Here are more parts waiting for the stupid silly bearing problems to end. Ended up running to a machinist to confirm the opinion that the problem was the bearings and not the engine and shaft.
Here are the rear louvers temporarily mounted.
Plus, I caught the Moore Brothers (they rent the family farm) running their Hotsie on a combine and got them to clean off the junk Detroit blower ("it don't go roundy round no more") that I'm going to make into a Hot Rod foot stool.
The Pinto project sort of sagged Wednesday afternoon because I caught a virus and the weather was going bonkers just south of the farm with a lot of gully washers, plus tornados in Moorhead, Little Sioux, and Omaha.
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Finally got the engine mostly together for Wee beastie. Ended up really honing those pesky bearings down to get the auxiliary shaft to fit right. I'm wondering if that block had the holes for those machined just a little bit too small. I'm going to start dropping the engine in the porthole Pinto on my next day off.
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Kind of had a lull in this project.
Got a bunch of more stuff bolted to the engine and the Pinto up on stands ready to take the motor. I even got new clean cardboard to lay down on.
DGH
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Wow, making me think really hard about my possible TC swap. Very helpful info. Hope you haven't given up yet. Keep posting stuff.
Thanks!
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I haven't given up (yet). I just got a little burned out and needed to give it a rest to recuperate.
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Made an attempt to drop the engine into Wee Beastie, but business got into the way of my pleasure so I just ended up bolting more stuff on the motor. Me thinks my little 2.3 went from looking cool to looking cluttered. Will try to drop it in on my next two days off.
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Lookin good!
She'll be going anyday from the looks of it.
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Well, I got the engine in and sitting on its mounts and the flywheel and bell housing bolted on. Will try to wrestle the transmission in before supper.
Photos later.
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Got really back into the black comedy of making a white "Pinto SVO".
I started with bolting even more stuff to the engine.
I bent a special tube to reroute the turbo to the block water line. The nipple on the turbo is turned 180° upward from the factory. Also note that the oxygen sensor hole had been plugged and a new hole was drilled and tapped into the side. I'm doing this to get it out of the way of the air conditioning manifold and possibly be the first person to do a turbo Pinto with factory style AC.
Finally, got the engine on the hoist and installed the flywheel.
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Then the clutch pack gets torqued on.
The engine gets lowered halfway in. Progress halts while the serpentine power steering pump and bracket gets removed because it looks like it isn't going to fit. The engine is then lowered all the way in down to the mounts. Then lifted out because I forgot to put in that plate that goes between the block and the bell-housing. The engine is lowered back into the mounts.
The power-steering items turned out to fit after everything was lined up.
Then a whole lot of buttoning up started. If I had to do this again. I'd drop the engine in without the manifolds to make it easier to get to the stuff underneath.
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This is where the progress stopped today with the engine half way buttoned in. It seems as this goes along my poor engine looks less awesome and more cluttered. Despite having the spiffed up valve cover screwed down. Maybe things will improve when I get far enough along to start cleaning up the wiring harnesses.
BTW, the accordion hose between the VAM and the turbo was shortened about 3/4 of an inch on both ends.
Next time, I hope to borrow the transmission jack from a guy that use to work for my Grandpa's Allis Chalmers dealership back when Grandpa and Allis Chalmers were still around and get that World Class T5 bolted up there.
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PS: Well Pinto blocks are blue. Violets are too. At least by cheating poets. I think that turbo 2.3 blocks are supposed to be black, but I painted mine blue to go in the Pinto. :afro:
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I could about choke my Pinto tonight! I borrow a transmission jack, spend a hour getting the T-5 transmission shimmied in, and get a bolt or two snugged up. Then I start buttoning up the clutch and find out that there's no way to adjust it to disengage. The lever hits the front of the opening before that happens. So I drop everything back out to look at it. I'm scratching my head over this. My two best guesses are either I have the wrong throw-out bearing or the throw-out lever is bent. Any advice from the "Pinto Pros"?
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Well I'm definately no pro,.. but I'm thinkin it would take one heck of alota force to bend that clutch arm.
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I'm making a WAG that there is a difference between Pinto and Fox levers and that I got a Pinto lever mixed in with a Fox bell. Parts numbers should be coming later today.
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Here are the numbers:
Throw-out arm: D4ZA-7515-BR
Bell Housing: D4ZA-6394-AD
I think they should be a match, circa 1984.
Pictures later today when I get down to my Big Mac in Omaha to munch them.
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Well, I was buttoning up some odds and ends while I'm still waiting for the solution to my clutch problem.
Here's a close-up of the throttle bell-crank that has had the top 1/4" rounded off for hood clearance reasons.
Another look at the turbo to VAM bellows. This is before I take the turbo or manifold back out at some time in the future. Note to future turbo swappers: put the starter in first and then install the manifold and turbo.
The vacuum tree from a Merkur mounted on the driver's fender well.
Not much clearance between the water pump and electric fan.
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Found out that there are different lengths of clutch pivot balls. Fortunately, I had a longer one in a '80s hydraulic bell. I swapped it in and apparently all the clutch stuff now fits and works.
Shimmied the transmission in. Used a 17mm 3/8" socket with a u-joint and a loooooong extension to reached the top two bolts on the bell housing. The altered rear tranny bracket got warped during all that welding, so this project is stalled again until I straighten the thing out on the hydraulic press at work.
Also another dumb problem: the shifter smacks against the console and won't engage the odd numbered gears. Any cures for this?
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Thaty looks like a T-5.
From looking at the photo, I would try taking the shift lever stub out of the top of the tranny, heating it to cherry (not orange),.. bending it just a little,.. maybe 1/4". I'd make the bend Imeadiately below the lower bolt hole for the shifter. From the looks of it you could lock the stub in a vice and use the shift lever itself as a fulcrum. After you get the correct bend, heat it again to make sure its cherry, then quench it in dirty oil. (dirty oil is a slower quench than clean oil for several reasons) . I think if you dont quench, it will probably aneal and be too soft.
There might be better ways to tackle the problem, thats just what comes to mind.
after closely looking at the picture, I see what looks like aluminum poured around the base of the shift lever, probably better off using something eles to do the bending. The thing that was nice about using the shifter was it would prevent any possible distortion to the bolt pattern during bending. A lot of force will be required when bending "cherry" as opposed to "orange"
Or,.. fore go all that and figure out how to move the console forward! :smile:
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Also another dumb problem: the shifter smacks against the console and won't engage the odd numbered gears. Any cures for this?
I had a guy who worked with me once that would probably think the easiest way would be to relocate the firewall and engine rearward 2 inches, shorten the drive shaft, and estimate $68.00 labor for 3 days of work to do it.
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I had a guy who worked with me once that would probably think the easiest way would be to relocate the firewall and engine rearward 2 inches, shorten the drive shaft, and estimate $68.00 labor for 3 days of work to do it.
Hmmm.
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Straightened out the transmission mount and got that bolted up, along with the driveshaft, and even got the safety switch wiring patched up. Now to find a connector to hook up to the reverse light switch.
Cut out the floor hole for the shifter, added a 2" filler in the back, and the frame from the Merkur that the shift boot clips over. Have the console temporarily removed until I figure out a solution to that.
Here's with the shifter boot installed.
Here I hit the next impasse. I removed the turbo to get to install the starter. I'm wondering if there's a way to wiggle it in without dropping the rack or unbolting the engine mount and jacking the engine up.
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Found part of the last impasse, some 2.3 Ford starters are longer than other 2.3 Ford starters. Installed a shorter variety of starter that's better painted than the one in this picture.
The T-5 safety and reverse light pig-tails spliced in place of the former the C3 transmission pig-tale, to mate up with the World Class T5. As an Electronic Technician by trade, I solder and heat sink as much of this stuff as I can.
The Merkur down-pipe kludged to mate with a mom&pop shop exhaust that came with the car. Will be upgraded to 2.5" or 3" pipes after I get this running and when I feel like spending the money. (Enough with spending the money, already!)
The starter is installed along with the turbo and a lot of other stuff. (Too much complexity for one stupid little Pinto!) Next time, I will cobble up a ground cable, fix a water leak, and hopefully finally start this up one year and one month after I started this swap.
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Finally got the turbo EFI 2.3 buttoned in the Pinto and got it on all fours. Even inflated the tires and cleaned the windows for good effort while waiting for Bob the Mechanic to show up. He's been some expert advice and adult supervision on this project. It turns over, but the electric fuel pump doesn't switch on and there's no spark. Not looking forward to trouble shooting that on my next two days off. Will probably start with the off-brand relays where the Pinto electrics splice into the XR4Ti Electronics and then follow the Merkur Manual from there.
Any turbo Ford experts here that can help me out?
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I got it started at around 4:15 this afternoon! Yay! Yay! Yay! :afro: :lol: :afro:
The previous problem was that the fuel pump relay wasn't plugged in right and the hot wire to the coil wasn't connected.
It's running rough as is, but I hope to dial it in and tune it up tomorrow.
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VERY COOL!
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Youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nmmLfsA4Gs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nmmLfsA4Gs)
The cheesy sound makes it sound more like a D-21 then it does an ex-Merkur.
WIll dial it in and get it on the road next time.
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I dialed in the TPS, spliced in some new fuse links, and put the grill and hood back on, plus some other odds and ends. At least nothing really rubs against the hood. Had to kludge the clutch cable using a hose clamp as a spacer to get the thing to shift. The brakes still aren't working right after a couple of bleeds, but I got it on the road and took a short drive down to Moore's shop, because I just had to tell somebody, and back. I even got three pounds of boost going up their hill!
I will probably replace the master cylinder next time and figure out why the gas gauge quit working for no reason. I wish that this silly crap would end and just let me drive this. This project is running too late and too long and I want to clean out the shop and other things.
At least the car has nice lines, despite being and old cheepmobile with weathered paint and spotty primer.
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This project is in long digressive overtime because of a broken spring and bad brakes.
Was up at the farm on Tuesday and Wednesday, working on the Pinto and sending off der Merkurs. Merkur is rumored to be pronounced Furdt Zierrrra in its native German. There is still spotty snow in the hills lingering after the late season dusting from a few days ago.
The guys came all the way up from Kansas City to get what's left of the Merkurs after I picked over the turbo Pinto worthy parts.
I did have daydreams of putting the biplane spoiler on the red Merkur and fixing it up with a Red Baron motif with a broad white boy-racer stripe* with "Der Iron Krosses" in them. Tiny silhouettes of Spads and Sopwiths painted on the driver's door. along with a certain beagle and his doghouse.
A while ago, I removed the rear axle of the Pinto because of a broken spring.
* Would that be a "Krautboy" as opposed to a "Riceboy" or even "Wheatboy"?
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While the axle was out, I installed a Posi differential with the help of Bondo Bob. After pounding and pounding to get the final bolt out of the front spring hackle, I finally started to get it back together. I hope to button it up next time that I'm up at the farm.
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nice progress, wont be long now till its a dd.
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A dd?
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I'm guessing "daily driver" ;D
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The two days that I was up in Soldier, I did two days of work on the Pinto, plus two half days of nuisance chores for my Mom. With that and a disrupted sleep pattern, no wonder it took me a little while to recuperate.
Little known fact is that the front eye bolts on the rear Pinto spring get torqued to an even 100 foot pounds. Unless the car is up on a hoist, and I don't have one, it takes a lot of grunt work in an awkward places to tighten them.
Replaced the emergency brake cable with one that didn't hang and screwed the show adjusters waaaay out. The brakes finally work. Very well too, and I'm not used to power brakes in a Pinto. The rears lock up halfway easy on gravel.
Once I got the rear buttoned in and the battery charged up, the engine started right up after sitting for the winter. The computer even kicked down the EFI idle properly.
Both the fresh engine and posi differential are still tight. The rear tires grumbled as I took a tight turn while backing up the Pinto. There isn't enough weight back there to make the differential clutches really slip.
Had fun roaring up and down the road until a lack of hood clearance knocked the throttle cable off the bell-crank and I limped back home idling in second gear. I'm going to modify that bell-crank.
Next time I'm up in Soldier, I'm going to get the turn signals to work again, change little plastic gears until the speedometer read right and other shake down things.
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Any updates on this?
I'm considering getting the throttle body assembly from the turbocoupe at the junk yard in case I decide to go EFI some day, but, will I still have hood clearance issues?
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Most of that stuff has been fixed and I've been driving it around Omaha and between Soldier and Omaha for the past two summers.