Worst was the wiring. A bowl of spagetti under the dash. Cheapy Radio Sucks type glass fuse panel on a flimsy circuit board material. Wires spliced to wires, spliced to wires, spliced to wires. Wires that went no where, little black box electronic gizmo stuck up under the dash not wired to anything but with a florist receipt tucked inside ???? (you get the picture, if not check my gallery for actual pix). I just tore it all out and put in a fresh harness.

 

Although I have seen ALOT of bad 'restorations' on F-100's in my day, the one that sticks out is actually a 1940 Ford coupe we had come into the shop one day with the complaint that it wandered all over the place when he was driving it and he thought he needed a new steering column. One look into the engine bay and I saw what the problem really was. The PO had tried, and I do mean tried, to install a late 70's Camaro clip under the 40. This was THE WORST case of a butcher job I have ever seen and it was being DRIVEN!!!Not only is this completely the wrong IFS to use in a 40, but the clip was barely hanging on to the butchered stock 40 frame. Don Emmons, from Custom Classic Trucks came out later and took a picture of the pile of trash and used it in an IFS article as what not to do and what any IFS swap should NOT look like.
We hooked the owner up with a new chassis and the proper Must II. setup.
And he did get a new steering column too.

 

you seen a lot of Bob's F-100's restorations from what i hear.

 

Yes, have had SEVERAL customers that couldn't get out of there fast enough.
One guy dropped his truck off at Bob's and left a 5 grand deposit for a volare install and a few other things. Within the week of dropping it off, he found us (Bobco) and was so excited that we actually had concrete floors, he pulled the truck from Bob's and brought it to us but still lost his 5 grand. Bob had one his idiots take some parts off his stock chassis and charged him the 5 grand to do it.
We eneded up building him a complete 56, ground up, and made a good friend also. His was the only flamed one we ever did. Classic trucks mag called it "Sub Par"
Here's another name for the So Cal F-100 guys, remember Bob Moniger from Riverside? Somebody does, I saw a fist clench.

 

The PO of my F-1 used bondo as a dent filler too...love that. The hood is rust free...yet it has at least 1/8" of bondo all over. So far as I can tell, none of the body parts were welded together. The bed wood from the under side looks brand new, but it has a steel pan in the bed still which was welded in a few places to the bed sides...not so sure if that is an original fit or not. The worst part is the rear bed hoop. PO welded a piece of angle across the whole rear end and one piece on each side back up to the side of the bed...uuuhhhh....not only is it fugly but it did not fix the rust issue! It already had a late model Ford 9" properly hooked up in the rear so someone along the way knew what they were doing. To lower the front, they de-arched the front main leaves so bad they are dang near straight...thank God they are out now!

It was sporting a tired 283 and a 3-speed when I got it. There was a hole, maybe an inch or more, in the valve cover made from prying on the alternator to tighten the belt. What he must not have realized was the belt squealed cause the pulleys were not aligned at all.

In all, my truck is in great shape given what it could have looked like. It seemes like there were only two paint jobs in it's life...Meadow Green and the current brown metalflake. Once I repair the rust and clean off the bondo, it will be Earthtone Metalflake. I have seen a whole lot of em in worse shape than mine....also seen em better. Suppose I should shut up and get to work on it!

 

Just something to add. On mine the radiator sits low down in front and he put a long radiator hose from the manifold outlet down to the radiator. When I pulled it apart to put a raised outlet on the manifold to create a system high spot to fill and relase air i realized that there wasn't even a thermostat. Also if you didn't take the hose off the manifold end and fill from there it would air lock the system..... Why jury rig it when it is so easy to take an extra 5 minutes and do it right??? Oh well it could be worse....

jim

 

Other than the normal, filling big rust wholes in the fenders and cab corners with chicken wire and bondo, they didn't even cut out the rust just filled it right in. And I'm guessing that the inside door handle was stripped so they used either some jb weld or 2 part epoxy and stuck it back together cause I'm gonna have to cut that thing off.

 

The PO of my 54 did a great job - mostly. He used foam rubber above the head liner so the inside of the roof has more rust than everywhere else added together. And he put lots of undercoating (tar) on the inside of the cab floor and firewall.