Project Car

Pinto ’74 – Gas Tank Back In…

I’m in the middle of completely redoing the rear suspension. As the original leaf springs were rusted beyond repair I bought replacements from a local spring shop and ordered them 1″ de-arced ( 1″ lower than stock height ). With the new springs I bought rear shackles and new poly-bushings all around for a little stiffer ride and better handling. While under the car I dropped the gas tank to do some cleaning up and undercoating. I’ve been busy with other activities lately and have not had the time to work on the Pinto as much as I would like. To that end I took a vacation day today to catch up and get the Pinto back on the road. I was able to clean up all the nuts, bolts and brackets that hold the gas tank in place. Once I removed all the rust I primed and painted the tank straps, installed the protection shield, connected the new gas lines and hung the tank. One step closer.

Pictures can be found on my flickr photostream – 1974 Pinto.

Added yet another car to the collection…

[ Post carried over from old web site devhaven.com ]
My daughter recently bought her dream car – a 2007 Subaru WRX STi Pearl White from CBRD Speedfactory the people there are about as close to family as you can get without actually being related. Anyway that resulted in me getting her 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS Silverthorn Metalic. Of course I get the remaining loan payment as well but I’m not complaining. I’ll be getting into more details about my new acquisition in later posts – for now this leaves me with tons of options for transportation as well as it gives me the opportunity to begin mods on the 1974 Pinto Runabout.

Can anyone say TURBO. Since my early days of car mods (1970′s) my first upgrade was a Holley 390 CFM and Offenhauser 360 dual-port intake with medium cam in my 1973 Pinto Runabout. That mod lasted about 3 months when I came across an AK Miller Turbo setup from the same guy I bought the 390 Holley setup from. He had just done the V8 swap into his pinto and had the complete turbo kit for sale – I bought it and the rest is as they say, history – at least for me – been a turbo proponent ever since. Now remember this is back in 1975 when turbos were not for the faint of heart. Volvo and Saab were your only factory choices and these were expensive. You couldn’t just go to your local auto shop and order up the parts you needed to do a turbo install like you can today – and these were run with carbs not EFI – lots of tuning and experimentation so as not to melt or burn up any internals.

Back in the ’80′s I had to sell off my car stuff to finance my new family life and have been missing it ever since. With ebay and a lot of digging around I have found what I need to start it up again. Stay tuned as the changes will begin soon.

Follow my rebuild visually on flickr

New Sumitomo HTR 200 tires for the 1974 Pinto

[ Post carried over from old web site devhaven.com ]
…alot has happened since 2003 – the Red Wagon has been sitting since being hit by one of our resident deers. I have in the mean time acquired a new addition to the Pinto family – a 1974 Light Grabber Blue 2000cc Runabout with a documented 27,000 miles. It had been sitting in a neighbors garage since 1989. I was lucky enough to know the owners daughter who was selling off her mother’s estate. $500 later and a trip to the notary and I was the new proud owner. I have a long history with the Ford Pinto but that’s a subject for a different post.

That was in the summer of 2004. I haven’t had to do too much to it other than the usual – drain the gas tank, change the oil, all belts including the timing belt, new alternator, battery, coolant, brakes, brake master cylinder, ball joints, shocks and my most recent acquisition Sumitomo HTR 200 205/60HR13 tires from The Tire Rack. Great prices and shipped same day with delivery in 2. The tires are summer tires mounted on stock 6″ rims and the Pinto really sticks to the road. This will be my good weather driver – Pintos’ and snow don’t really mix well but there is the occasional dry day during winter so if you’re in the Pocono Mountains and you see this car give a wave…