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Pinto engine conversion
- Thread starter CPDSarge
- Start date
Herb Concord Ca
Well-known member
This brings back memories, I had '73 Pinto wagon. It was the 2 liter from Germany, it had AC with the 4 speed, that car was great, we pulled a little tent trailer all over the western US. Got 30 mpg. Like said above its un non-destruct motor, when the cam belt breaks the motor just stops put a new belt on and your good to go. Put 200,000 miles on mine with just belts and oil changes. Donated it to a high school auto shop after the body was vandalized.
Keith True
Well-known member
Which engine is used for the conversion? I was told years ago the 2.3 did not lend itself to the A because of fitting issues.According to Ford and the US government there were either 54 or 56 deaths by fire in the Pintos.There were some wild stories about what was happening,some of the wildest seemed to come from Mother Jones magazine.I was working on Pintos when all this went down,and I do have a fascination with chasing down the credibility of stories.My sister bought a 77 Pinto,in 77,with 700 miles on it,for $700.
In the 70's one of the guys at the company bought an old very high mileage Pinto for $400 which burned ALOT of oil.
Dave had a deal with the 60 other guys in the branch. We would give him the used oil from oil changes.
Dave kept a 10 gallon barrel of oil in the trunk and would add oil when the check oil light came on.
He finally got tired of stopping to top it off...
A surplus 12 volt pump and some wiring and Dave could "add oil on the fly" with out even stopping!
By then he needed a 15 gallon drum to keep up.
Dave got an 60 day assignment in CA and told me he was driving the Pinto out there.
On these trips the Grease Monkey guys kept his barrel full. They were glad to get rid of it.
I asked him what he would do it it blew up on the trip?
He said "I will leave it on the side of the road and will clip the title to the sun visor and use the $400 that I keep in the glove box to buy another one!"
Nobody knew how many miles it had on the clock but Dave put on over 250,000 himself.
The joke was that he also did mosquito fogging as a side business!
Dave had a deal with the 60 other guys in the branch. We would give him the used oil from oil changes.
Dave kept a 10 gallon barrel of oil in the trunk and would add oil when the check oil light came on.
He finally got tired of stopping to top it off...
A surplus 12 volt pump and some wiring and Dave could "add oil on the fly" with out even stopping!
By then he needed a 15 gallon drum to keep up.
Dave got an 60 day assignment in CA and told me he was driving the Pinto out there.
On these trips the Grease Monkey guys kept his barrel full. They were glad to get rid of it.
I asked him what he would do it it blew up on the trip?
He said "I will leave it on the side of the road and will clip the title to the sun visor and use the $400 that I keep in the glove box to buy another one!"
Nobody knew how many miles it had on the clock but Dave put on over 250,000 himself.
The joke was that he also did mosquito fogging as a side business!
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Synchro909
Well-known member
Seems Ford didn't learn their lesson from the Pinto and its flimsy rear end. When they stopped making the Falcon here (which was rated 5 stars out of 5 on the safety scale along with Volvo, Mercedes, Audi etc), Ford thought the Mustang would be a good replacement with its 2 stars safety rating and the towing rating was zero. You couldn't even put a bicycle rack on the back of them, they were so flimsy. I believe the latest model Mustang is rated at 3 starts but still no strength in the rear end.
History repeating?
And the prices they go for reflect that. After the "crash" panic, the statistics showed that a Pinto was actually no more likely to catch fire than other compacts, but it was too late for it.
A car that sold for $2050 new now sells for $15,000 in excellent condition ....
I'd get another but I'm not paying that for it!
Model A first!
Lannis
Keith True
Well-known member
The high fatality rates for them is not from fires,it is per million.They ran in the low 300's for the Pinto,the Vega,the Gremlin,and one each of the better quality Toyota and Datsun.The Corrola and the lower end Datsuns were much higher than that.I saw LOTS of Pinto fires in the 70's and early 80's,but they had nothing to do with the gas tanks.The gas line came up from the fuel pump,and bent to line up with the carb outlet.Those two steel lines did not line up,and the rubber fuel line that connected them was under stress from the day it was made.All that needed to be done was to grab the upright line and bend it so the pipes would line up freestanding.That rubber line would crack from all the stress,and drip gas right on top of the distributer.The ford dealer here knew about it and would grab the line and bend it as part of setup.
rotorwrench
Well-known member
Hard driving and no top end lube. I knew the guy that owned it. He set it up to drive it from SW Kansas to Denver to pick up body panels for his body shop. His kid did most of the runs and he went everywhere as fast as he could go. He converted it back to gasoline before I bought it. I went right back over the mountains with it when I moved to the Four Corners to work. It was all mountain driving until I moved to Texas. The rings were worn and it lost a lot of power by that time. High oil usage was setting it so I sold the little bugger.
We ran irrigation engines on natural gas but we used lubricaters on them.
LP is a "dry" fuel, that is, it does not do any lubing of the top end. Thus, exhaust valve seat recession is a problem, especially in heavy duty use like big trucks. Hardened valve seat inserts are necessary.
rotorwrench
Well-known member
When the US government mandated unleaded fuel back in the 70s it took a while for it to kick into high gear. Hardened valve seats had to make a come back for its use. My little Courier pickup wasn't made for unleaded fuel. They changed the size of the filler openings for unleaded so that the older leaded gas pumps wouldn't fit. All sorts of little stuff changed after that.
I remember all the things that had to change, like filler opening sizes, when leaded fuel was banned.
I know that we in the Olde Bike Hobby wondered for years if we needed to replace the valve seats in our bikes due to the lack of the lubricating properties of tetraethyl lead. But it never really seemed to be an issue. I have old bikes that have been running on unleaded for many years on their original valve seats.
I don't think anything has been added to the fuel these days to "lubricate" anything in the top end of the engine. I don't say that I use any Marvel Mystery Oil, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from using it for those purposes!
Lannis
Usually the exhaust seats are induction hardened. There seems to be some kind of difference in the exhaust gas content of LP versus unleaded gasoline. In my career as a mechanic I saw a lot of LP engines with sunken exhaust seats, but very few gasoline engines. The exception being Dodge pickups with the Magnum 360 engine. I worked on a fleet of them at the AZ Hiway Dept. First we had the 1 tons that were used hard. The exhaust seats would recede to the point where the lifters were bottomed out and valves couldn't close. Soon the 3/4 tons started coming in with the same thing. After some more time and miles, the 1/2 tons started failing.
Synchro909
Well-known member
I have run all of my "modern" every day drives on LPG for years. In the early days, I had a reservoir of lube on the firewall and a needle valve to drip some into the inlet as I drove. I later years, that has not bee necessary because the valve seats have been hard from the factory.
As for 40 Deluxe's post, how dumb was Dodge and the fleet manager at AZ Highway Dept when even I, with no mechanical training at all knew what to do?
As for 40 Deluxe's post, how dumb was Dodge and the fleet manager at AZ Highway Dept when even I, with no mechanical training at all knew what to do?
Jordan
Well-known member
Personally I love the pinto conversions in the Model A's. My parents have a 2.3 with a c4 in a coupe, my brother just got a slant with a 2.3 with a c4, and I am about to put a 2.3 with a c4 in one of my sedans which currently has a 2.8 v6 mustang II motor in it mated to a Model A transmission... let me know if anyone is interested. Still runs great.
Which would be to quit buying Dodges! The Fords and GM's in the fleet did not have any valve seat recession problems.
nkaminar
Well-known member
To each his own, but for me my Model A must have a Model A engine.
When in college I drove a stock Model A at 45-55 mph. I got a ride home with some other college kids in a Pinto. The lady that was driving did not go under 90 mph. Scared the s**t out of me. Of course, now-a-days a lot of people drive at 90 mph.
When in college I drove a stock Model A at 45-55 mph. I got a ride home with some other college kids in a Pinto. The lady that was driving did not go under 90 mph. Scared the s**t out of me. Of course, now-a-days a lot of people drive at 90 mph.
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