Well guys I have had the 51 ford pickup bug for a very very....did i say very long time? I bought a 51 about 8 years ago in hopes of making it a street rod that I would basically make my daily driver because thats what I want to drive I didnt want it to sit in the garage. Anyways years passed and all i could do was tear it down to the bare frame and cab....because I soon found out that that was the only thing salvagable...seriously it was bad when I torn into it. Well, more years went by and no money flow really I just bought a bolt on MII crossmember from CE (on credit lol) and installed it on the bare frame after cleaning and paining of course. I new that I was going to have to buy all new fenders, running baords, bed...everything. The flat head is stuck, but I was going to put a 302 or 351 in it anyways (thought about a 460 but thats just to much motor in my opinion for what I want the truck for you know). I calculated it out to cost about 20-25 thousand dollars for what I wanted the truck to be when I got finished. Well I recently started looking at other 51 trucks forsale that I thought would be a good deal with good bodies on them to try to save some money in the long run on parts. (by the way my wife is out of school now and working so that helps with me trying to buy a decent bodied truck). I recently wentto NC to look at a truck I FOR SURE was gonna get on craigslist...I had to rent a trailer and use my dads truck to pull it all the way there. I had many phone calls to the owner which asured me that it was in running condition and body was in good shape. Even had picures emailed to me that looked awesome!.....Guess what? I came back with an empty trailer and 250 dollars (for trip total) out the window (12 hours total driving time)....you live you learn. the big turn off was that he had hacked off the front of the frame and put some kind of monstrousity front end on it and the welding job was terrible....I could go on and on. Then the next week end basically, I drove my wife's honda to knoxville to check on one that I had extra pics sent to me and everything and it looked awesome and the pics were like High definition or something cause it would zoom in on it and everything.....the truck was half bondo as the other one in NC was and my infant son could have done a better job! Needless to say I got back in the car and said "i'm just going to build my truck". I had basically lost 300 dollars just going to look at trucks. Well the next day my dad told me about a man he worked with that had retired some time ago that had bought a 51 off an older lady who's husband had passed away. (I actually remembered him and he was a nice guy and he liked me pretty well i just hadnt talked to him in about 4 years or more.) This was a long time ago and wondered if he still had it, he had visited where my dad worked a week ago to see his friends who he had worked with and dad over herd him say something about the old truck. So I got his number and called him, I talked to him almost 2 hours about almost every thing in the world but the truck lol. BUT finally at the end I asked him about the truck. he told me that the truck was as straight as it came off the show room floor! he said he had gotten the flathead running about a year ago. He told me what he would take and I about fell in driveway. (I was outside talking to him lol) Needless to say I am going to go look at it this weekend and if it is the way he says it is then it will be mine. Plus he only lives about 15-20 minutes away from me. (go figure) I just hope that 3rd times a charm!!! The moral of the story is....if you find a truck you really like and its a good distance away do every possible thing you can to get the info about it before you end up like me.... Also never give up because you never know what might happen

 

I hope that three times is lucky and that it works out for you.

Thanks for the post.

 

To do it right ya got to Spit and Hunker for awhile talking about life before ya get to the Truck Dealin

 

If anyone has a lead on a truck a long distance from home the best thing to do is ask on the board if someone lives nearby and ask if they would look at it for you. You're more than likely will get an unbiased opinion. Offer to pay for their gas and a stop at the local burger joint for their time. I tried this when I bought my panel on eBay a few years back but no one replied to my request until after I bought, a little too late then. The truck wasn't what the seller said it was, at least it turned out not as nice as I had thought. I wish I could have found some one nearby to take a look at it.

Today almost everyone has a digital camera, you could ask the person to snap a dozen pictures. Again, you're more likely to get more honest pictures from an unbiased person than the seller will take. Not to say all sellers are cheats but it doesn't take a look to make a car look good in a picture that looks a little dicey up close and personal. I knew a kid in high school who was selling a car and posted a bunch of pictures of it in all the local stores. The car sure did look nice in the pictures but it didn't' show the grind marks in the bondo or the rusty bumpers he hosed down with silver paint from a spray can.

Good luck with your latest truck. If you get it make sure to post some pictures, you have curious as to how it turns out.

 

Ya just gotta look at it this way - $300 on dead ends is cheeep compared to a bad fleaBay deal. A lot of guys buy sight-unseen, pay a nonrefundable deposit, and then have a pile of junk roll off the trailer when it gets delivered. Whenever I go to look at a car for the first time, I ALWAYS assume that it will be in much worse shape than the pictures show. If I'm surprised and it's as good or better than the pics made it look, then great! Unfortunately, that's rarely the case.

 

I spent far more than 300 chasing stuff so you got lucky . I've also spent enough on previous attempts to have had the money to do my 53 the way i wish so ........ As you said live and learn , and it's always the last one you blow off that turns out , and usually for some other lucky stiff . My 53 was one of those your full of sh-- neighbor tells ya about and i didna believe him . Finally went over just before it got sold to a guy who wanted to pull the cab and trash the rest and build a high dollar rod with an aftermarket chassis .i got the money pdq and gave it to the man before the other guy got back down here from the chitown area . Ooops ! Sorry for the caps fella's !

 

We were very lucky. Searched Ebay for a while for a suitable truck before the panel was listed. It was all the way on the other side of the country tho. A forum friend on another forum's father lived in the same city the truck was in and was a gearhead himself. He was more than willing to go look it over and test drive it (I wanted my wife and I to be able to drive it back home). Turns out my third party observer/driver had previously worked with the truck's current owner and he was able to get a complete run down of the truck's history, current condition, and why it was being put up for sale! The opinion he returned was even better than my highest hopes. We flew out there and were met at the airport by the owner who turned out to be a very honest and great guy, just not much of a gearhead. He and his wife were into restoring old travel trailers, and they had bought the 56 to pull them with to meets and camping trips. Unfortunately his wife was recently diagnosed with a degenerative desease and had to quit her job, and the truck had a lot of little things that needed fixing that he needed to find and pay someone to fix, which was not in their budget. They decided to make do with their late model SUV for towing their trailers and spend the truck money on travel before she got sick enough to not be able to go any more.
After a day there while my wife and his dealt with all the transfer paperwork and I made a few repairs and additions (#1: wired up a new cigarette lighter outlet for our laptop computer with GPS to guide us home), we took two days to drive Gracie (the name she told us along the way that she wanted to be called) from NM to NC. We decided in advance to avoid driving into the night just in case. We even got to meet Sy the owner of Mid Fifty at a gas/lunch stop!

 

Well! third time was a charm guys! I'll be posting pics soon. It has a good running flathead v8 and the truck was in awesome shape! I have to wait till the middle of next month to get it but it ill be mine! WHAHOO!!......can ya tell im excited

 

Fate sure is a funny but fickle thing, huh?

Just so that everything goes well, and I know he is an old acquaintance, but did you give him a deposit and get a receipt? Boy, as I get older I sure get cynical (skeptical), it’s got so bad that some days I don’t even trust myself.

I didn’t want to tell you my story earlier, but sometimes things just work out the other way around, just poop house luck usually. I took the 51 F1 I now have (no engine) on trade for a bunch of parts, I never really looked at it, just another truck for parts maybe, (with buck teeth) and It sat at the back of the lot for years as I worked on other projects.

Last year I decided I wanted to do one more project and a pickup would be handy so I signed up here (sorry) and started accumulating parts. Every time I go look or do something on the pickup (can’t really start, gota finish up others) I’m impressed with how good of condition it is considering the year etc. Almost everything is still there, a complete truck with little rust, luck of the draw and fate, huh?