1974 Pinto Station Wagon!

I was born in the 1960's so I saw a lot of these Ford Pintos growing up.  Ford produced this model as it's answer to the Chevy Vega, and the AMC Gremlin  from 1970-1980,  see Wikipedia for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto

Yeah this car is a real beauty. It's owner is becoming one of our regular customers. We have custom build his cooling package for a 1970's International 4wD pickup that he is doing a frame off restoration. We will post on that one when it's done.

For this Pinto we recored his radiator and increased its capacity to a 3 Row from a 2 Row giving it 33% more cooling efficiency. This Pinto has the Ford 4cyl. 1.6 liter motor which didn't overheat from the factory. Giving this car a 3 row radiator he will be able to tow and have A/C with out having any cooling issues.

This is a classic yellow on brown interior, high back bucket seats and the classic pinto emblems on the inside and out. The paint job is a repaint but the body is in such good shape and the color match is done so well it's hard to spot.

I remember seeing these cars rolling down the city streets as a boy and wanting one. My friends and I as we grew older would fantasize putting a V-8 Chevy motor in a Pinto and making a hot rod out of it, I think most backyard hotrodders thought that way.
Thanks to Lance for bringing in this rare blast from the past to our shop for service!
Questions? always happy to help http://www.intermountainradiator.com
Our cars show is next week at Biggs Harleydavidson please come if you can http://hotrodsandharleys.net

Intake woes

This is a picture of an missing intake manifold on a 3.8 Chevy 6cylinder. The intake we removed because it was seeping from the corners where it meets the head. (the head is what is pictured) See that stuff coming out of that water passage? That passage was completely blocked shut with antifreeze and corrosion.

Here is another shot of the plugged passage. This passage carries water between the heads and circulates it through  the motor. The customer also complained of intermittent overheating. This could be the cause.

It was like this on both sides of the motor. The cause of this condition is most likely lack of maintenance. Regular cooling system flushing and fluid changes would have probably kept this from happening.

Here is a picture of the port cleaned out, after we put the intake back on and recheck the vehicle it ran and functioned fine. No sign of overheating and no more leaks. The moral of the story is preventive maintenance can keep you out of the shop and your car running better longer.
Questions? give us a call http://www.intermountainradiator.com

Backward thermostat, big trouble

Notice anything funny? Last week we had one of our regular customers come in with his Chevy van. The complaint was it was leaking coolant and overheating from time to time. We noticed that the intake manifold gasket was the culprit and had been leaking for a while so we pulled the intake off to see just what we were up agenst and as the job progressed Donovan found that the thermostat was in backward!

Yep that was the cause of the overheating all right. The customer fessed up to changing it himself. We put an all aluminum radiator in this particular vehicle last year and that's the only reason it didn't blow the motor up.

Heres a before and after. The photo on the left was how we found the stat and the one on the right is the correct position. Why does it matter you ask? Well facing up the spring that makes the gizmo work is not submerged in hot liquid, and without that no matter how hot the engine gets if its not in liquid it won't open.

The engine in this van has almost 200K on it, the intake gaskets were absolutely gone in the corners of the head where they attach and seal. We cleaned all serfaces, applied new gaskets and put in a new thermostat and our cusstomer was on thier way.
Need help? we love to answer questions. http://www.intermountainradiator.com

Check out our new car show site. Come join us if you can! http://www.hotrodsandharleys.net