Heres my old truck... 95 F150 ex cab short box, I 6, 5 speed, 4x4. 192k mi on the odo when i sold it, and not a thing wrong with that engine. No ticks, squeeks, squeals, nothin. Leaked a little oil, but thats to be expected. Had I kept it, by now it would leak nothing.

 

Great photo! These seem to be fairly uncommon truck combinations. I am getting really excited about the one I found, I called my mom and we had a chat and decided it wasn't such a bad idea to get another pickup. My 89 is getting pretty tired, and it may be time to up-grade to a newer model. Although I would sure miss that ol' 351w It has been a great truck, but it might just be time to fully retire it and move on to another great pickup.

 

I kind of liked the 85 with the 300 that I had. I got it new. It had nearly 300K by the time I got rid of it and was still running OK. It did have early issues like losing manifold bolts and the original clutch was too small. Luckily the larger clutch was easy fix. Also the clutch control system was poorly designed at time and needed to be replaced many times. The 4 speed OD manual it had was a weak POS much like the M5OD's were. It was eventually converted to a C-6 automatic because it was less expensive at the time than finding another manual with OD.
There is no doubt the 300's last but it took good maintenance and patience to get it that far.

 

I have more patience and time than money my friend My daddy raised me to be a patient man and to use my head. I think with a little weekend-tinkering I could make this into a really decent pickup that should last me until I wear it out or decide to replace it. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

 

Be sure you really like the truck. If there's something that isn't quite right with the truck, don't just settle on it because you made a long trip to see it. Also don't let on to the seller that you made a long trip to see it because he may not be open to haggling. Try to see if there's some attraction in the area you can make use of if things don't go your way. You can also tell the guy you were in the area for something else so the guy doesn't think he's got something really worth while for someone to make such a long trip.
Good luck!

 

The aunt I mentioned earlier lives in the same town this is located, so if nothing else I can visit some family. I know what I'm lookin for in a truck, and if it drives as good as it looks I might not haggle too much.

 

There you go. You can tell the guy you're visiting your aunt so then he won't think you made the trip just for his truck. You should then be able to offer a fair price for the truck if it's worth while.

 

He is actually asking what I believe is a fair price, as long as it runs and drives as good as it looks. I will need to take a loan out anyways, but that is not a bad thing because I need to build some of my own credit before I go off to college. Plus I can pay over half of the truck off in a down payment, and loan about 1/3 of it, so payments would be really affordable. I will of course check out the 4x4 and make sure everything works. When I called him today he said that everything worked just as it should (I will finally have a work truck with air conditioning!!!) So looks like I'm headin' to the bank tomorrow to see if I can even get approved for the loan. Hopefully by monday I will have a new truck to show you all