,I seem to remember rember seeing bumper stickers on Pintos and mavericks warning of fuel tanks failing during rearend accidents.Does anyone have any tech. data or repairs,and what year models that they apply to.Thanks Don!
All of the old muscle cars, and even the fox body mustangs all mount the gas tank right in front of the rear bumper. During a rear impact, the crashing car will nose down enough to get a pretty good shot at the exposed fuel tank. Take a look at camaros, or cudas or chargers or anything like that with the tank in the back and you'll see what I mean. The dodges are the worst since the fuel fill is pretty close to the driver's head.
I think it had more to do with where the filler tube is located than the tank location......the cars that had the filler in the middle of the back panel, when hit from the rear, the filler tube would break and/or rupture the tank and spill gas. Something about the Pinto's design lent itself to expolding gas tanks more than even other models that were at risk. I don't remember if the Maverick was included in that recall or not.....we owned a "new" Maverick back then, and I don't think we ever got a recall notice, although, I did recieve a notice from Ford for my 70 Mach-1 Mustang concerning the filler neck breakage risk, and another about the auto shifter sometimes not locking in the Park posititon I don't remember any recalls involving Dodges, but with all cars, the fire danger in rear-ender accident have always been a concern, and many recalls have been issued over them.....and it's not a thing of the past, The mid-to-late 90's Crown Vics for example.....alot of cop cars went up in flames in accidents, and there was a big recall over that one. My '98 Interceptor had the "tank gaurd" upgrade done on it while it was still in service. But the Pinto will always be infamous for being the exploding car.
the pinto was specifically a problem with the tank being shoved into the differential & causing a spark to go with the tank rupture. the fix was a thick piece of vinyl/plastic installed between them. i guess it prevented the spark. had to have it done to my '72 pinto.
Ford tried to save money and didn't install a $2.00 part (on early models) if I remember correctly. I don't remember what the part was. Saved them a lot of money (multiply $2.00 by all the Pintos) until the lawsuits. Later year Pintos were fine. There was no problem with Mavericks. Chevy Corvairs also had an explosion problem.
Yeah, everybody thought it was funny when my wife at the time bought a Pinto with Firestone radials.:bananaman
it was pinto, i know of a friend that it happened to his parents back in the 80s... there was a recall from ford to put in some reinforcement and a different style of filler tube.. the problem mostly was the tank would spring a leak from a couple bolts or something puncturing the tank, and then spill.. and then with the pinto back end sitting so high up, the car would literally lift the back end up and rupture the tank spilling the fuel onto the car that hit it, into the engine bay and ignting it off the exhaust manifolds..
That is also the reason they went from the drop in tank to the one that strapped under the car, if the tank split the fuel could enter the passenger compartment (on the drop in style). Have a look around some of the Mustang sites, there is some good info on them.
The following is from memory alone - I can't find the recall article or work order. If you have other information then please share it: The Pinto was the only Ford with a non-expanding tank. They came from the factory with none of the "reinforcement" corrugations in the tank. When they were hit, the tanks ruptured when other tanks would have folded without rupturing. Ford thought the tanks were small enough that they didn't need "reinforcement" and forgot that those corrugations also allowed the tank to deform without losing it's fuel. The recall was to install the new corrugated tanks.
