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Pinto feedback		Monday - 09/28/2009 Soon To Be Moving... Yep, over the course of the next couple of weeks I'll be moving the contents of this site to my new blog http://www.bruceflinn.com/blog/. The interface for the blog makes it easier to do updates which means it won't be months between posts and it will allow everyone to add comments. I'll be keeping this site up and running for a while so as to let everyone update their bookmarks and links. In the meantime visit the new blog. You can also find me on twitter. Hope to connect with you all soon. Sunday - 12/29/2008 Added yet another car to the collection... My daughter recently bought her dream car - a 2007 Subaru WRX STI Pearl White. 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. This leaves me with tons of options for transportation and gives me the chance 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, 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 what I need to start it up again. Stay tuned as the changes will begin soon. Sunday - 03/09/2008 Gearing up for the warmer weather... Well most of the snow has been washed away with the rain over the last couple of days. Now we just need to get the temperature up above 30 degrees farenhiet so I can move the red wagon back into the garage and swap out the gas tank, fuel and brake lines. This will let me get it inspected and back on the road (I hope). Thursday - 03/01/2008 Back in action... Winter doesn't seem to want to leave this year. Last Friday we had a 5" snow storm - the week before we had just gotten rid of the last of the ice on the driveway. I actually had the chance to fire up the '74 Pinto and drive it to work - I'm still amazed at how much fun it is to drive that little car. Anyway with the cold weather hanging on I've been using the time to organize all may parts in the garage in hopes of getting to work on the '78 Pinto wagon. During the down months I spend more of my time catching up on the business side of life - you know making money so I can pay bills so I can buy more car stuff and the circle is endless. One of the things I came across in my travels is Equifax Credit Watch. As a past Bank Manager and working in the financial world I know how important it is to keep a good credit rating. I've been an Equifax Credit Watch Gold customer for 3 years now and have found their services very helpful in managing my credit. I like to pass on the good values I've found so use this link to look into it and decide for yourself: Thursday - 04/26/2007 Wow - it's been 3 1/2 years since I've been posting... ...alot has happened since 2003 - the Red Wagon has been sitting since being hit by one of our local resident deers. I have in the mean time acquired a new addition to the Pinto family - 1974 Light Grabber Blue 2000cc Runabout with a documented 27,000 miles. It had been sitting in a neighbors garage since 1989 and 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 it was mine. That was back 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. Maybe that's a little more than the usual but when a car with that low mileage and had been sitting for so long you can't take a chance with anything rubber not being dry rotted. Thursday - 10/30/2003 The Pinto is back in the garage... ...one nice Sunday morning about a month ago around 9am I'm cruising along in the Pinto at 45mph on a 4 lane road in our area minding my own business when WHAMMMMMMM and I mean WHAMMMMMMMMM something hits me just behind the drivers door. The impact was strong enough to push my rear end and make me swerve a little. I look in my drivers door outside mirror and there's a BIGGGGGG mother (female) deer skiddering (new word) along the road behind me. No one else was around on the road I mean out of the whole EMPTY road this deer had to find me. It came across three lanes of road at I can only imagine a full out run to hit me. I never saw it so it must have been bookin. Of course it got its' land legs again and took off after its' friend into the woods leaving me standing next to the pinto on the side of the road looking at my nicely reconfigured rear quarter panel. The nose print was on the popout glass and it's shoulder left a nice dent/crease just behind my door, it's rear end nailed me just before the tail light again leaving a good 4 inch depression/crease. It only figures that of all the years I've been living with these creatures I've never hit or been hit by one until I get my project car (pinto) running and looking good (not perfect) but just good. I was planning on doing body work on it after getting the 2.3 turbo setup running. Now I just have to do some of it earlier than I thought. Welcome to my life..... (pictures to come) Thursday - 09/04/2003 The Pinto is on the road... ...after being on blocks for the past 8 months the Pinto has made it to the pavement. Of course there will be the ever ongoing updates and fixes like the rag joint (HELP part #31005) or as some refer to it the steering coupler. Mine was a thin rubbery compound that had split into 3 sections leaving my steering wheel to freely move a good couple of inches in each direction before actually turing the wheels. $10.00 bucks and a couple of hours later the unit is as tight as can be what a difference. Now I'd like the chance to drive it but the weathers been as wet and ugly as it was in the spring. Hope to have a chance before the snow starts to fly. Thursday - 06/12/2003 Winter Was Long... ...and Spring never seemed to get here in the Northeast. Rain, fog and clouds just about everyday since April. Now it's June and guess what? Rain, fog and clouds. I know you're not really here to hear about the weather you want to know what's going on. Well let me begin by telling you that our son (Shaun) has won the Pennsylvania District 11 - 22nd Annual Congressional Art Competition. You can see the piece that won by clicking this link: Shaun. He's working on putting a paragraph or two together so I can add it to the page. Shaun's work along with the rest of the nations winners (one for each Congressional District in each state) will be on display for a full year in the Cannon Tunnel a corridor leading to the United States Capitol in Washington D.C.. Been plugging away at the Pinto project, expect to have it road worthy in a couple of weeks. Then comes the fun task of putting togethter it's new engine configuration. Special order twin weber 45 DCOE sidedrafts for use with a turbo blow-thru setup. Can't wait for some summer fun. Tuesday - 12/17/2002 Having a hard time finding parts? I have been authorized by www.RockAuto.com to pass onto you a 5% discount on every one of your orders until March 31st 2003. Use this code 24825 to get your 5% discount on every order. Enter 24825 and only 24825 on the "Please tell us how you heard about us" line of the shopping cart when you're ready to check out. Anything else on that line will negate the discount. RockAuto.com has been an invaluable source of inexpensive replacement parts for my '78 Pinto project. I found the Hard To Find Fel-Pro Turbo Gasket set for the '84 TurboCoupe T3 setup I bought on ebay. The price for the gasket set was about 1/4th the cost of what others are charging on ebay. Yes I could have bought a bunch of the sets myself and jacked up the price to make a profit but hey you guys and gals are in the same boat I am. Every dollar saved is another part I can buy later and I would rather pass on a great deal so everyone wins. Now with 5% more off the already great price you save even more. So start shopping and let me know how it goes. Just follow the easy to navigate site to locate your vehicle and begin saving some money. Sunday - 12/01/2002 Winter has finally arrived here in the Northeast. There's a little bit of the white stuff covering the ground and the temperature has been hovering around 20 to 30 degrees. Just enough to keep things from melting. The Pinto is coming along slowly but surely. Here's what's been replaced on the rear so far: 5 leaf rear springs [ part # 96ZX7575RF ] J.C. Whitney rear leaf shackles [ part # 15ZX0053B ] J.C. Whitney Gabriel gas rear shocks from D.G. Nicholas (a local Car Parts auto supply shop) high durometer rubber bushings for the front eye in the leaf springs [ part # 2234 ]Racer Walsh U-Bolts, front eye bolts, spring/axle pads Springs'n Things Nice people, would have bought springs from them if I found them earlier. Pictures of the rear suspension before, during and after can be seen here. Took me 2 months to finish the rear mostly because everything was rusted together and had to be cut off with a cutoff wheel. The front eye bolts were the worst, I ended up cutting the end of the bolt off where the nut was and cutting the section of the leaf spring off around the front eye to get to the rubber bushings. I cutoff the bushing material to get to the bushings metal sleeve. Slicing that with the cutoff wheel I was able to get some PB Blaster and WD40 inside and finally got the impact wrench to spin the bolt free and pound it out with a hammer and punch. What an ordeal. Once that was done the rest went relatively smoothly. To unwind from the more often than not frustrating (but theraputic) process of parts removal and replacement I like to pull out my guitar and play along with Santana. His guitar has a very definate soothing effect on my soul. Anyway I've been picking up a lot of new and used parts to get this Pinto project underway so stay tuned for more updates soon. Wednesday - 09/11/2002 Been a busy few months. Summer has come and gone it seems. Been busy working on a new project car. Yes I do have a life other than being in front of a computer. The car is (now don't laugh) a 1978 Ford Pinto station wagon. I'm getting ready for street driving first then comes the fun stuff later, maybe a turbo 2.3 or a mild 302 V8 who knows that's the fun part of a project car you're always changing something. Pics and dialog will be added to a Pinto section shortly (my shortly could mean by early next year). No really, I'm going to make a concerted effort to add something at least once a week. So stay tuned... Support this site by making your purchase from Amazon.com through the above link(s). 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