People know me as a model T guy. I have always said I don't work on model A's, but they kept coming. As guys who did babbit in the area folded up, I gave in and tooled up for them. At this point I have done main bearings in over 50 of them. I have come to prefer them over model T bearing jobs in some ways. So now A's are in here all the time for all kinds of work. Now, once I have become comfortable with them, the dark side has mounted an all out assault on me.

Hard to tell on my computer but that looks like a Pinto. I had a friend back in high school who drove one every day. Was a fun little car. I have a F100 I rebuilt I use for my primacy vehicle but I don't drive much or go far.

I had a Pinto, nearly identical to that one, for beater car in the 80s. I pulled the engine and transmission to swap them with an air post type bumper jack !!! Before that, the rear main was leaking so bad, the oil light didn't work and when I turned a corner and heard the rods rattle, I would pour a couple quarts of oil in...that I caught in a gallon jug while doing an oil change at work !!
My other car was a 73 Grand Torino fastback from NC...I still have it.

2.3, turbocharge it, TKO 600 trans, 3:73 gear 9" rear, 26x8 slicks and she'll be good to go---for some 10 second or less passes on the strip.

I have a weird fascination with Pintos, if I had the room, time, and money, I would buy one as a project car and probably do something similar as above. Or a 302 swap with small twin turbos. But as a former drag racer, we used to call short wheelbase cars like that guardrail magnets.

Have fun with it.

Back in the early '70's, a good friend of mine had a Pinto that we swapped in a modified 351 Cleveland with a top loader four speed. Found a rearend from a '57 Ford that bolted right in(almost, had to pull the springs in about 1/4" on each side to fit the mounts), worked great. The body was stock, it was a very snotty rig! Ah, the good old days. Dave

I had a '75 Pinto.

We moved to Arizona from UP of Michigan in a 71 pinto coupe. 4 of us and the dog. My dad paid $100 for it and you could throw a cat through the top of the front fenders. Some screen and bondo and brown rattle can paint and we were off. Made two trips in that car and he sold it for $500. The only thing he had to replace was the ignition switch because it was wore out.

Another great 4 cylinder Ford! Dave in Bellingham,WA

Guess after that low mileage Pinto station wagon sold for over $33,000, time to restore your old Pinto!

I am working on this one for a friend at work. It was his wife's first car. She has had it since it was nearly new.

This is what a Pinto should look like.
Including the big tires!

ugggh, those 1.6- 2.0 OHC 4 cylinders wore out camshafts faster than a Y-block! The cam was hollow and had tiny oil passages that lubed the followers that opened the valves. Those holes would clog up and the ensuing dry friction would quickly wipe out a lobe.

Worse yet, the cam bearing in the back saddle was bigger than the ones at the front of the head so you had to remove the head to replace the cam.
After doing that a few times in my '73 pinto bean I realized there was enough room under the dash to snake the cam out the backside- once I chisled a 4" x 4" hole in the firewall directly behind the rear camshaft support.
Then all I had to do was remove the tin plate hole cover, position my wiper blades at about 2 o'clock (so the under dash control arms were out of the way of the camshaft as it was withdrawn from the head) for additional clearance I would also remove my Spark-o-matic 8 track radio so the cam could come fully out of the head before it would drop into the passenger's foot well. Later versions of that engine (2.3L) fixed that problem. You could now remove the cam towards the front of the car, but they still wore out if you didnt keep your oil spotlessly clean.

Speaking of the wiper arms under the dash, One time I was leaving my girlfriends house around 9pm on a sub-zero night when an arm fell off the attachment point to the wiper motor transmission under the dash and started to clank around under the dash. Not thinking, I reached up behind the dash to grab it and it immediately grabbed ME and wound my finger up in the mechanism.
I was trapped in my car, face pulled tight into the steering wheel, arm cranked into a pretzel and, by the way, I had already taken my coat off and threw it in the back seat. I was ironically freezing to death in a car better know for barbecuing its victims! Of course the horn didn't work so I tried flashing my lights and yelling, but the house was shut up tight for the cold weather and the one headlight that worked was shining down the side of the garage where nobody could see it. Finally, after about 30 minutes their cat saw me out the kitchen window and somebody noticed her twitching her tail and staring intently outside. Through my frost encrusted eyes I saw a few more vaguely human silhouettes appear in that window, and in a minute or two, my girlfriend came outside to see what the hell I was doing there, and suspected I was playing some kind of practical joke on her. It wasnt until she felt my ice-cold skin and saw the pretty impressive snot-cicle hanging from my nose that she believed me. She got her dad, he tried to unwind me (his quickly vetoed first suggestion was to simply cut the trapped fingers off "Theyre
already frozen, you wont even feel it!"...) but ended up calling the local rescue squad, which attracted the entire neighborhood, and finally they had to unbolt the entire wiper motor unit from the dash to free me. A gallon of hot chocolate later and sans wipers on a snowy February night, I was back on the road!

That, and I think that car had about 2 inches of ground clearance. When the floor rotted out underneath the carpet and beneath the pedal assembly I had no clue until I hit some deep snow and the dangling sheet metal at the rear of the rust hole acted as a scoop and instantly filled the space between the carpet and the floorboards with a pile of snow that blocked my feet from getting to the clutch pedal! I had to stomp on the carpet to push the snow back out of the hole so I could continue on my merry way until i could get home and tar in some street sign patching metal!

Other than that, I really miss that car....

I’ve gone over to the dark side to with a 1957 Nash Metropolitan. Extremely easy to work on....

Good choice on the Metro. Great little cars

Michael P.,

What happened to your Metro's Lucas generator?

Went up in smoke! So did the points, and positive ground, and front drum brakes, and 4.22 rear end!

I had a 72 runabout for my first car. It was a miserable 2.0l with 4 speed. Always broken down. It was yellow with a black top. I wanted the black 69 428 Mach 1. My dad said it was to fast. But just having wheels was pretty cool,even though it was a pinto. Lol

I used to have a Met back in '79, wish I still had it. Found it in MtShasta $400 "Brakes are no good!" I nursed it back home to Dunsmuir on back roads. Yep, brakes are no good when you put DOT3 fluid in them! Next trip to Redding, picked up all new seals and some Castrol Brake Fluid (DOT4)-- less than $20 for it all. We used to drive it around singing the "Beep-Beep" song--radio even worked! (well, did have to replace the vibrator). Just before we moved to Oroville I sold it for $800, thinking I did a good deal. WrongO! A few months later, the Metro prices more than doubled AND it would have been a great commuter car for the job I had in Oroville.

Wes Copper put a hopped up model "B" in a pinto 70's ? I think kong Jackson was involved with the project if I can find the article he sent I'll post it

Micheal Pawelek, beautiful Met ! we have 3 Mets and love them. I call them the model t of the 1950’s. Huge support, huge following and they usually multiply just like a T. They only made 110,000 of them, but I believe there is as much parts support for them as model T, and the quality of said parts is much higher IMHO ! With an easy mod, you can also drive them on the highway.

Strange you should post that Pinto,I have a 2 barrel carb off a 73 in the shop now to clean out and put a kit in.It is off a friends wife's college car.It has sat over 20 years in the garage and his wife wants it running again.
My granpals 74 wagon was not a bad car really.Just slow and ugly.But he traded it for a 84 Escort wagon. Big mistake. That escort was not half the quality of car as the pinto and he often said he wished he had it back.He later traded it in on the 91 f150 I now have.

Tim Morsher, Shhhhhhhhh be quiet. Don’t let the word out until I accumulate a huge stash of parts! I shot my mouth off on this forum years ago, Stan will confirm this, at how great the Stromberg OF was running on my 1919 and guess what......you can’t find them for $25 anymore!!!
My Met has a three speed Austin tranny and 3.9 rear end....

That’s Three speed on the floor.....

A few guys in Connecticut had Pintos with turbo 4s from the Thunderbird installed in them - really woke them up!

just a note on the Nash Metro.

When one gets to that stage the frame, suspension, engine, transmission is totally changed from original. Same as a Bucket T being called a Model T. Going that far is not my cup of tea.....

Same goes for this.

Steve, is that actually a Forg engine ??

Two words...Cheese & Rice !!! Muhaha !!

I've been looking for a new project of epic stupidity and think I may have found it. I found a fairly straight and slightly rusty Metro convertible near me that is missing all its running gear, I have a very modified Suzuki Samurai. I'm thinking Met body panels on the Samurai running gear. I'd have to do a lot of metal cutting and fabricating, but a 4 wheel drive Metro on 32" Mud tires would sure turn some heads in the desert...

Dennis - I like Metros, why not take the skin from a Geo for your desert hopper? Oh yea, there is probably somebody somewhere that thinks a Geo has a redeeming quality.

I had a Pinto for about 6 weeks back in the 70's.

I have had my 61 Metro convertible for 12 years. I am getting smarter in my old age. And to keep this on topic, Eric has my 14T engine in his shop.

Bill

That Yellow Met is something else--but I'd sure like to have those steam whistles that's on it!! What on earth are those doing there??? The two biggest ones appear to be a Lunkenhiemer and an Essex.

David, It still may be for sale!
https://classics.autotrader.com/classic-cars/1957/nash/metropolitan/100879417

All those horns and whistles might come in handy in commuter traffic........