I bought this '56 F100 and i'll tell you, it's been the truck from hell. Naturally I got the ol' song and dance from the owner and would like to have thought he was geniune. Finding out further as i go, that's not at all the case. I bought my '56 with the intent on putting the tranny back in it and tie up a few loose ends and be driving it. I'll tell ya up front, I paid $5200 for it and it came with a 460/C6 in the bed (460 is junk) and a rebuilt FMX was in the bed (was to bolt to the 390 sitting in the engine bay) and "all the parts were there to get it running and driving". Yeah.... Not really.
Well... turns out, 4 months later, I've had to--
*Replace the entire rear axle assembly because it was a screwed up mess of many different parts as well as the garbage mounting hardware and frozen e-brake cables.
*The engine/trans mounts were scabbed trash and the engine was sitting crooked and tilted, so I installed a new crossmembers and reset the engine/trans properly.
*The engine is trash but was told it was a good runner.... (heh-as long as you didn't put water in it...) So now changing to another 390.
*Torque converter with the FMX tranny was wrong... so scrapped the FMX and put in a C6.
*The aftermarket steering wheel was WELDED to the end of the stock steering shaft. (WTF???) With shaft destroyed and box worn I did the Toyota box swap. Still trying to figure out the steering column situation...
*Wiring is screwed... so far had to replace the ign. switch still more to come here..
*The brakes were completely trashed. (kinda expected) All new wheel cyls., shoes all the way around. Rebuild the master cyl. Fabbed new brake line for front pass side as the clown wadded it up somehow after cutting out one of the frame x-members the line used to pass to the RH side of the frame on.
*Tried to fit supplied driveline.... yeah.. not on your life! Had to find a much shorter shaft to replace it. Add in new u-joints there...

Still need to replace both door regulators, dig out the mud they burried the outside mirrior mounting holes with and replace the mirrors, replace the worn out front springs, new rear tires, replace the seat with the correct one, and a few more smaller things. Also new exhaust as the repositioning and changes to the drivetrain made the current stuff junk. THEN maybe after finally driving it for a bit I'll tear it down and start on the paint and body...! At that time I'll replace the hacked up inner fenders.

All in short, I spent a little more $$ thinking I was gonna get a truck I could drive in a few weekends time, obviously no show winner, just a clean beater. This was suppose to be a running/driving (or was...) truck when I bought it. I might have a 2-3 more weekends worth of work just to get it to move under it's own power again. And probably have at least 1/2 as much in money spent on it since i got it as I paid for it. I can't believe people build this kinda #@%&* and can sleep at night!!! I never expected to have to do this much work and above all, some of these things I'd never expected to find!! oye vey...

I guess I just needed to vent and also warn others to BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU'RE BUYING!! Not that it's a bad truck, just not exactly wanting one that needed all this work! I'm sure once I'm done with it, it'll be a solid truck. I know some of this is my error as wasn't very knowlegable of the 53-56 F100s and am having to learn. I DID learn that i should have just clipped the front end... a little late for that now. Just depressed that I'm not able to drive it yet and it's been taking a slow bleeding financial drain on my funds and alot more time that i anticipated. In retrospect I should have spent another 5-10K and got a done one. (I've alrealy got enough project cars!!)

Anyways thanks for letting me rant..

 

Welcome to the world of classic vehicles!
First and foremost, never listen to anything the PO tells you.
Second, if you don't know what you are looing at, take along a friend or hire someone who does, it'll cost less in the long run.
Third, glad you are making progress, it'll all be worth it when you fire it up and head down the road.

 

Sorry to hear of all your problems. It sounds like you've done a lot of work to get this truck road worthy. I am just wondering if you're capable of doing all this work why weren't you able to see all the problems before you bought the truck? A lot of the problems you listed seemed like they would have been obvious problems that could have been found rather easily. Even if you weren't an old Ford truck guy these problems had to be pretty obvious. Weren't you able to see it in person before dishing out the money for it? Did you happen to buy it on line?

I'm not trying to be a hard a$$, I've been known to buy beaters, but I usually know I'm buying a beater and from your description you bought a beater, no where near the value of what you paid for it.

Sorry, that's just what I was thinking while reading your post.

 

Wow it hurt just to read that , sounds as if at least you got a line on what you need to to at this point. thats good. When i bought mine from a friend that had to move across country, they said it was perfect just slap some paint on it and it will be worth 15k, yeah right what a rust bucket ,didnt steer , didnt stop caught on fire from the horrid wiring on my first drive around the block, had water in the oil ect,ect Anyway I feel your pain. The good thing is Iv learned to love not only my truck but the hobby, and ive met lots of nice folk here at FTE. Welcome to the site, and good luck with your truck. (JIMMY)

 

Was that your post on the HAMB, with the super-ugly motor mounts?!

I got boned just about the same as you on my truck. PO claimed he regularly drove it around his trailer park (LOL) with everyone waving at the cool old truck. It couldn't possibly have run for the last 5 years. But in the end it worked out OK. I guess.

 

I understand how it goes. I overpaid for mine because it was a "driver" and was visually cool. Since then rewired front half of truck plus a lot of other stuff and way not done yet. Not even close.

BUT, She has now become my truck and she is not going anywhere......

jim

 

thank's ..good to see I may be"normal"...my trucks haven't had all your problems ..at once or the same truck but gone through it all of the same thing ..and it seem's so have the others here have too...so your in good company !!!so when do we get to see her???

 

Considering that I only kept the cab and transmission, I overpaid for mine too. I also thought that I'd throw a couple of thousand dollars at it and call it a day. After I replaced the frame, the whole project took a turn for my bank account.

 

Hmmm Dano - I'm not sure it gives you much satisfaction to know that a bunch of us are in the same boat. I just got back tonight from seeing the guys who are helping me with my 1950 F1. I paid $6K for mine & I actually drove it home (very carefully) - It's been on it's back since - voted to replace both doors & the front hood today - just too much rust on the bottom of the doors. I got you beat on dollars spent 4X - I admire that you can do all of those things - You'll be proud of it when you are done.

Ben in Austin

 

I always use the X4 approach to budgeting...whatever you think it's going to cost...mutliply that by 4 and you should be reasonably safe.

 

This is what they look like shortly after you find their hidden "secrets". But I knew I was buying some pretty decent problems when I bought it. The PO before me actually took the biggest hit, but he left some exciting surprises for me as well.

 

Yep, that's about what my 53 looked like shortly after I found the Volare IFS bolted in through holes cut in the frame with a torch, except there was nowhere to mount tires on the front

 

This actually started out as a truck for my dad. HE wanted one and I went along as the objector. He been in the automotive industry for 30+ years and built his share of REALLY nice streetrods and a few musclecars. He taught me everything I know and I built from that with tons of books and reads as well as hands on university. Anyways he had a '56 back in the 70s before and that's what brought on the search. Long story short the truck ended up at my shop (his was too full of crap) and again, we were under the impression it's be quick to on the road. Well after the axle debacle he wanted out and was about to cut his losses as he bought another truck that was supposedly 'finished' (oh man... a whole nuther story..) so I bought him out on it and continued the project. He needed a 'done' truck as his body can no longer take the abuse of working on cars like he use to. (total restos and whatnot) I was gonna do it up for him anyways, but stubborn and impatient, he was done. So now I have it.

I'll admit, it wasn't the best of conditions when it was bought. Raining out (made the paint actually look shiny) but I knew it needed to be re-painted. I had my dad there. Him and I both looked over it really well and some things I did know about. We had looked at about 4-5 other local '56s and this was the best condition for the price. Alot of these things that we later found were near impossible to see without actually ripping the truck apart or putting it up on a lift. I saw that the engine had farm-fabbed brackets, but from topside they didn't look too bad... caked in grease and grime of course. But from the underside it was horrid. At that point you could tell (from underneath while on the lift) that the engine was crooked and sitting lopsided. Couldn't really tell from topside. The rear axle was the shocker. He had wider aftermarket wheels on it and it covered up the obvious drum fitment problem which was plain as day once the wheels were off. Tearing into the axle only got worse by finding mix-match parts that just would not work together. The brakes were a given, I knew about that and figured on a complete rebuilt anyways. but he removed the x-member below the tranny and just left the brake line dangling there and probably snagged stuff with it thus damaging it all to garbage. The steering column was the real surprise. Like I said he had an aftermarket wheel on it, horn button and all. After removing the button that's when I found the stupid thing welded to the shaft! I WAS gonna rebuild the steering box later on, but now that the shaft was junk...nope. The wiring was questionable, and as expected for a vehicle of its age... just diappointed that there are more problems that I'd accept for a 'driver'. Fortunately the body is in pretty good shape no major damage and appears to have all of its original parts. The old re-paint is garbage and is bubbling up in spots. Like I said, planned on doing a re-paint anyways.
But at least I do have the skills, knowlege, as well as a little help from you guys to fill in the gaps to do this. I just can't believe what I'm seeing. It just bothers me that people build JUNK like this and that they can sleep at night or try to pass it off as something it's not. When i build something its a reflection upon me, my name is on that rig. I couldn't even dream of doing hack work like that and then be able to sleep at night. My opinion and my belief is- it takes just as long to do it RIGHT as it does to to it WRONG! And if something isn't right, I don't hesitate to tell the prospective buyer! That way.... it won't come back on me (or them) and give me (or them) a bad name! I mean REALLY.... not that big a deal.

I'm sorry to hear there is more of you that got burned. Just makes me so mad. It is nice to know I'm not the only one, yet sad at the same time. I'm sure once it's all done I'll probably forget about most all the battles, just not to that point yet. I know... with old cars it should be expected... Hopefully all of us will get these things done so we can start to enjoy them. Now I need to go put a couple cars up for sale so I can get more cash to finish this mess...

 

buyer beware.

 

I don't hold any anger toward the prior owner - I knew I was buying a 60 year old truck instead of buying a new F150 because I wanted a more interesting truck. I figured they would cost about the same. I knew I was going to replace the tired old 289 engine & 3 speed so their condition wasn't critical.

We've now fixed most of the issues and are putting it all back together now. The one are I wish had known more about was the Cab & body work - I knew there were holes in the floorboards, the cab corners, & the doors - What I dodn't know was what this meant in terms of effort & dollars to fix. I would have gone out to the Southwest for a better cab body If I knew how critical a solid body was. I think that's the one thing I'd higlight to people entering this "hobby" - It's pretty straight forward to upgrade the mechanical pieces of the truck that have decayed over 60 years but a solid cab & body is definitely worth looking long & hard for. I'm happy I did it but boy do I wish I knew then what I know now.

Ben In Austin