Pinto photo from the CC Cohort by AGuyInVancouver.
After deciding our Chevrolet C20 wasn’t the best family transportation, I began shopping for a second car. Our budget didn’t allow for much so we bought a 1970 Volvo station wagon from a university couple.
The rust was starting to show on it, and it was none too powerful, but it had the durable four-cylinder Volvo engine and a very worn automatic transmission, though it was comfortable. However, the engine developed a rough idle that winter, and I diagnosed a leaky diaphragm in the SU carburetors. I bought a repair kit and rebuilt them in the unheated garage of our new house.
Volvo wagon photo from the CC Cohort by Leo Jones.
Barbara preferred the Volvo to the truck but was unwilling to drive it after the hood hinges rusted out and the hood flew up while driving it on the interstate. I used bungee cords to secure the hood and drove it carefully, letting her drive the truck. I was looking to the future and found a second job, a night shift position as a machinist apprentice, feeding CNC machines and going to tech school.
The problem with owning a pickup or van is that you are everyone’s best buddy on moving day. I lent the pickup to a friend who needed to move and though he swore he knew how to drive a standard he over-revved the engine and spun a bearing. He was honest enough to pay for a used replacement engine.
However, the years were taking their toll on the C20. The next person to borrow it burned up the clutch after getting it stuck in the mud and I ended up paying for that failure in my judgement. Then rust accelerated to the point that water would splash up through the doors onto the floorboards. The electrical system started to fail. The first to go was the ignition switch on the column. I bypassed it with toggle and push button switches on the dash, not worried anyone would think of stealing it.
While I was content to deal with these issues Barbara was not, and rightfully worried about being stranded on the side of the road with a newborn. We sold the Volvo to a friend for parts and I bought my sister’s four-year-old Pinto hatchback.
I was convinced that my first Pinto’s quality issues had been a fluke since the other Pintos in our family were both reliable commuter cars. Barbara was thrilled to get it and on top of that I was gifted a running parts car of similar vintage to help keep it in repair. We also were able to keep the child’s car seat in the Pinto which made life easier.
Pinto photo from the CC Cohort by AGuyInVancouver.
My sister had kept the car garaged and had been gently used as her work commuter car. It was simple to work on and with a ready supply of parts, I had no trouble maintaining it in a reliable condition for the first two years.
Our home was in a new development on the edge of rural country, our mortgage was carried by the Farm Home Administration. When our son turned one Barbara started looking for part-time jobs and child care. Both involved a lot of driving and the Pinto racked up miles quickly. Unfortunately, it was not immune to rust and parts started to fail for which there were no replacements. The mechanicals were getting worn and the time devoted to keeping it up was eating up the little time I had left for my family after my two jobs. I could tell the end was near.
“My worst nightmare, the car stranding us… with my wife and infant child in the middle of a snowstorm.”
1984 on Easter weekend we had been in Long Island visiting Barbara’s family and left to return on Easter Sunday, much later than we meant to. As darkness gathered the radio faded out, then the headlights flickered and died and finally the engine stalled out, the sure sign of a battery not charging. My worst nightmare, the car stranding us on a deserted stretch of I-84 with my wife and infant child in the middle of a snowstorm.
Our momentum carried us over the crest of a hill at the beginning of an exit ramp. We coasted down the ramp and into the parking lot of a motel across the highway at the bottom of the ramp. After checking in and getting the family settled I went out and popped the hood to see if it was something I could fix. In the dark with no flashlight and nothing but my scout knife I gave up and decided a good night’s sleep was the best course of action.
The next morning I checked the charging system and found the points in the mechanical voltage regulator were burned. Using my wife’s nail file I dressed them and was able to start it right up. We didn’t hesitate to get on the road and when we stopped in Clark’s Summit Pennsylvania for gas, the combination gas station/convenience store had a replacement regulator on their shelf in the back.
I bought it and the appropriate box end wrench and replaced the offending unit (while saving it for a spare) at the gas pump. Because the Pinto was so compact and traveling with a baby requires so much luggage I did not have room for my normal emergency tool kit, much less spare parts. We no longer trusted the Pinto for trips out of town.
My professional development at work had stalled after a few promotions and new assignments. In order to make ends meet we heated our home with wood which required 12 to 16 cords in the winter. My employer allowed me the use of the company stake rack to carry loads back from the family camp in Schroon Lake. This meant most of my weekends in the summer were spent cutting, splitting, and hauling wood with my brother-in-law.
Ford Escorts, 1984 brochure.
When our first daughter came along in 1984 my parents decided that we needed a reliable car despite our straightened circumstances and told me to go to their Ford dealer and pick out a Ford Escort like the one my sister had purchased after her Pinto. It had been a reliable car for her and they were worried that I was pressing my luck with the Pinto and a new baby.
I took my son who was almost three and went to the local Ford lot, and I knew Escorts were in short supply. I also knew that we needed four doors and room for lots of luggage. All that meant a wagon.
Pinto photo from the CC Cohort by canadiancatgreen.
As we pulled into the dealer’s lot I felt a thump in the back of the Pinto. When I opened the hatch I saw the passenger side shock absorber sticking up through the rear wheel well where the body had rusted away. Examining the driver side I saw the other shock mount would soon fail the same way. I suddenly had a new appreciation for my parents’ experience and wisdom.
The salesman showed us the two Escort wagons with automatic they had in stock. I asked my son if he wanted the white one with red upholstery or the beige one with a matching interior. He chose the beige one. The salesman told me it would take two days to prep it since it was just off the truck. They allowed a generous $500 on the Pinto without looking at it and told me it would be ok for me to drive it until the Escort was ready. I told them to never mind and called my parents to pick us up. I was relieved and my parents were overjoyed.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1980 Pinto Wagon: The Pinto’s Long Colorful End
That catastrophic rust certainly is fortuitous timing. I can’t get over the idea of having a parts car for a 4 year old car.
Good old NY rust. We had a ’71 Pinto wagon that held up pretty well (in MD at the time) but eventually rust and an accident did it in. So now we drive an xTerra beater in winter, rusty exterior sheet metal but full frame and good floors so it’ll hang in there for awhile . 205k miles but still runs well and burns no oil. So our “good” xTerra with “only” 87k miles and no rust can live a few more years. Car companies could easily make cars that won’t rust away, but they don’t want to. GM seem particularly bad, I see not-that-old pickups and vans that have bad rust, and I’m convinced they they want them to rust. It’s better than it used to be 30+ yrs ago, but still.
Those of us in the west can drive 40-50 year old cars and never see any rust problems. It’s amazing how the high humidity of the east takes it’s toll.
I had a ‘75 Pinto that was the same color. It was my first brand-new car and I loved it. Mine wasn’t the fastback; it had an enclosed trunk. There were lots of good memories in that car.
When my brother married in “77”. My, now, sister in laws, family had a “75 and “76” Pinto.
The “75” was the “h/b”. ((blue))
The “76” was the “2dor” ((brown))
I think the blue one “migrated” to the youngest sister in “79ish”.
The brown one was her dad’s, He kept it going till “83”.
Both had been purchased at the same time @ “Battlefield Ford”, in “Manassas VA.
They also had a “65 Fairlane wgn that apparently only got driven twice a month.
It was white.
Good to hear you got the Escort, I hope it wasn’t a terrible car for you, many hated them for being so crude .
The rust is a real thing and yes, the cheap steel used is deliberate, way back when I remember 20 + year old cars driving with gaping holes yet still safe to drive .
At the same time I remember more than a few 4 ~ 5 year old sedans that were dangerous and so scrapped .
Your babies are all now grown and perhaps gone ? .
-Nate
The twin challenges of constrained finances and rust. And as to lending out vehicles, I’ve heard more horror stories about the seemingly inevitable consequences that I stopped going there a very long time ago.
Interested to see how this works out. I know how my ’74 Pinto and ’81 Lynx worked out from 1982 through 1993!
Glad you survived that rusted car experience.. certainly sounds like life was tough for a while there. Great story and better timing on those strut mounts.!
Having driven I-84 many times during snow storms, often in cars of less-than-stellar reliability, I can connect to your story. I probably know the exit on the deserted stretch with the motel.
I also suspect that you must have felt at least a little warm glow of pride in (albeit temporarily) fixing the voltage regulator with a nail file. Isn’t it a great thing to be handy and mechanically-inclined?
Excellent story.
Me also, though many years ago. My Grandparents live in NEPA, but we’ve never lived closer than about a 4 hour car ride from them, though I’ve probably been to the area close to 100 times over my lifetime.
We now live close to 1800 miles away, but back in the 70’s lived up in Vermont, I’d travel to see them most often during the interim break between fall and spring semesters. Back then we had the added concern of not being able to buy gas; though my Datsun 710 was pretty economical it also didn’t have a very large tank (maybe 13 gallons). The area you describe is pretty remote, I remember being concerned about running out of gas on that same stretch of 84.
A couple of my cousins were born in Clark’s Summit, though the family moved away back in the 60’s. The only time I remember driving a Pinto was when visiting my Grandmother’s brother at his cottage on the Susquehanna. I only had my license about a year (this being 1975) for some reason they wanted some unpasteurized milk from some farm, they’d been drinking, and their son didn’t have a license yet, so I was charged with going with him to the farm in his mother’s Pinto sedan. I’d ridden in a couple of Pintos but this was the only time I ever drove one…even having worked for Hertz as a transporter, which back then specialized in Fords, my location didn’t have any Pintos nor Mavericks (not sure why).
Props for fixing your regulator with nail file also. Improvisational fixes are impressive and its good you did what you did even without an emergency tool kit let alone replacement parts. Hard to imagine doing that with today’s cars.
My 1972 Pinto station wagon ended up in a presidential motorcade and “living” at Camp David during the Reagan Adminstration while I was in the Air Force. As a 9-10 year old car, it looked like hell, but that was normal for cars of that age in those days. The car served me well for about three years. When I left the Air Force, the Pinto and I parted ways and I moved to a motorcycle full time. Check my podcast (link included) for the motorcade story.
I owned a very basic 1977 Pinto 2.3 4-speed manual. It was very dependable and durable.
I bought a ’74 coupe with 2300 and 4 speed in 1982 for $950. I drove it ’til 1989 and sold it for $500. Spent many happy(?) hours working on it. I also knew exactly where to find 10-40 for 39 cents a quart. Replaced it with my Dad’s 9 year old Courier pickup, which I drove for 22 years before giving it to my 19 year old son (who still owns it).