OK, Which one of you drives the Pinto?

[Caster]

If all the zip ties magically vanished the car would fall into a million pieces.

 

I went to school with an old boy who had a ride like this.  It was an old Ford truck, 76 I think.  360 engine.  He had an intake made for two fours but only had one good carb so he cut a street sign to make a block off plate for the back carb position.  His plug wires were made from scraps of monster cable the shop teacher had laying around and every kind of plug wire boot he could find. I watched him pry old wire ends apart and crimp them back in place.  You could NOT listen to the radio with the engine running.  

The most amazing part....that thing would pull the house down......as long as you kept oil in it.  

 

We don't see this sort of thing anymore.  For the best of course but people just aren't as inventive about getting a car going.  Now that just about any schmuck can get financed I guess there's no reason to.  

Edited August 6, 2015 by Caster

[LagerHead]

That is a small bucket cut in half and stuck on the carburetor.

 

Ah, so it is. At first glance it looked like one of those big rolls of TP from a public bathroom.

[jtmaze]

I thought it was me, but wrong color. You guys have never been to my house and seen my samurai. Been rolled twice and still road worthy.


JTM
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[BigK]

This thread makes me feel a lot better about the sea foam green '71 Dodge Coronet I drove in high school in the late '80s. My friends called it the big green booger...and that was fair.

 

It had a white fender and a dark green door (from a '72 Plymouth Satellite, IIRC) on the passenger side. I rigged up a toggle switch mounted on the dash that had to be flicked on/off when starting/stopping to bypass a bad solenoid relay. Third and reverse gears were bad in the transmission, so I had to back up with my left foot out the driver door. And the previous owner tried to peel off the white vinyl top leaving an attractive collage of exposed glue, ragged bits of vinyl, and rust.

 

All-in-all, I guess I'm saying I loved that car. It represented freedom and independance I only paid $375 for it and learned everything I know about cars by working on it. 

Edited August 6, 2015 by BigK

[dralarms]

My wife had this ugly green duster, nothing on it worked right and the coil wire ran straight to the battery

[TNWNGR]

You might be a redneck if you drive a car with this much original retro engineering involved in its daily operation...

[analog_kidd]

When I turned 16, my dad bought me a '72 Pinto for a few hundred bucks. He figured it would keep me out of trouble by keeping me in the garage working on it all the time. Ha, the car ran great and never gave me any trouble until the end. It leaked a bit of oil, but I kept a few quarts in the trunk, and would top off the oil when I filled up the gas tank.

 

The car had an AM radio, with some kind of add-on FM converter that played over one of the AM channels (so no stereo) and used the dash speakers. It also had an 8-Track player completely separate from the radio, and played through the rear speakers.

 

The car ran great for several years, until one day the transmission completely locked up one day on the way to work. I went skidding across the road until I pressed the clutch in, and coasted to the side of the road. Tried getting it out of gear, and the shifter fell right out of the tranny. I tossed the shifter in the back seat and hitch-hiked into work. I think I sold it to a friend who used it for part for his Pinto.

 

I had a lot of great times as a teenager in that car. Again, more proof that God watches out for fools, as I should probably be dead several times over for some of the antics we did back then. I also think the Pinto got a bad rap for blowing up. It happened a few times, and Ford did a recall and fixed the problem.

[Spots]

I had an 88 Ford Ranger right after graduating high school. I had it about two weeks and the cam lobes were flat in the 2.3 liter motor. So I called up a buddy that dirt track raced 2.3 pintos. Solid lift cam and lifters, in the .510 lift range with 260+ duration. Header, 3" exhaust, I had the welding class at Tech school weld a 2 barrel to 4 barrel adapter to a stack of 3 4 barrel spacers for clearness and the mounted a 750 holler to the motor via the adapter rig and the stock intake. I was putting in a new clutch every other weekend lol. It would turn 9.5k rpm with that huge carb and race cam. We rigged up a stutter box launch control. I think the real name is a two step ignition. Hold the clutch in, slam gas to the floor and it would cut the ignition in and out to keep at 5k for a drag launch. Popped and cracked like a top fuel doing that. I had to choke it with a rag to start it hot, the radio wasn't loud enough to overpower the exhaust, and I drove it like a madman. It finally spit it's guts out one night racing, I left a redlight on the stutter box, and when I hit second I saw the oil light. The oil pump locked up and it spit it's guts out somewhere north of 7k lol. Thanks for the memory jog

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