March 20,2007 – What happened to the Pinto?

The simple answer is that life happened…. In the past 10 months, the car has had some work done, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. In July, I changed jobs. This started a long path of issues that would prevent me from working on the car much of the time. But enough about that, now for the update.

Since the car was last updated, when Chris and I worked on the front suspension to install the new springs, we had to pry the old ball joints apart causing damage as we went. This meant that we had to replace them. I was able to locate new lower ball joints and end links.

here I have the car in the air so I can access the ball joints for replacement

after drilling the rivets that held them in place, they just fell apart (I think they were original)

Once removed, I used the jack to prevent the arm from dropping any lower. This prevents the spring from falling off.

Here the new ball joint is installed, greased and ready to go. Now trying to put the assembly was a challenge because the engine is still out of the car due to the oil leak from the old pan.

Fortunately I have purchased an oil pan kit from Summit Racing including pan, pickup, gaskets, hi capacity pump, pickup windage tray and windage tray install kit. Unless there is a problem larger than the oil pan, this should solve my problem. If it doesn’t, then there are larger issues involved.

At this time, I am not installing the windage tray or the install kit for fear that it could cause more issues than solve.

Unfortunately, with the new oil pan, I now had to raise the engine ½ inch higher than before. Previously, I had used 3/8 inch washers to elevate the engine above the steering rack.

I am now using 1” square tubing with 1/8” wall thickness. We may move the mounts later, but for now, this works. We will work on the exhaust in a few weeks.

The new issue is that the Radiator is now interfered with by the alternator.

The fan on the heater core will need to be removed as well, but that is later

With the use of Zip ties, I get the approximate location that will work with the alternator.

Using the scrap material I have left over, I drill holes and fabricate new brackets to hold the alternator. I will cut off the excess length once the radiator is in place

With the new install location, I was now able to fabricate a bracket to the rear of the alternator.

With the bracket trimmed back, the hose now fits with out any issues.

Next, I need to get the rest of the engine, transmission and suspension back together so I can take the car to the Fabulous Fords show on April 22.