Do these pictures lead you guys to believe that this truck was painted over rust?

 

Rust grows or eats(if you will) from the inside out. The work that should have been done on the inside is more important than the outside. So yes you can say it was painted over rust.

 

Drive it and enjoy it, when the rust gets bad redo the truck the way you want so you know exactly what you have

 

It looks like the work was done a long time ago. No filler, I think time just took it's toll on it.

 

The rust most likely came from backside. Fenders are not hard to replace so drive it and look for more parts (like we never have done that before). I would be more worried about what looks like where door opened into cab panel.

 

Cool. I'm learning as I go what to look for. Seems that door folded back into the cab somehow.

 

Manufacturers of the day (1953) did not spend much time/money finishing the inside sheetmetal...especially on work vehicles that usually had a short lifespan. As has been stated, that sort of rust began inside and ate its way out. The door jamb on the drivers side is probably eaten away around the hinge pockets which permitted the door to open past it's normal stop point. All signs that this old girl has some "issues". I would steam clean/pressure wash the undercarriage and put her up on a lift and do a thorough inspection of the underside of the cab, fenders, and bed. I bet that the front cab mounts are collapsed and that the front cab corners/pockets are rotted. Once you get to the point where you are seeing a degradation of the structural integrity of the truck then it's time to consider your options.

 

The 56 had no stop rods on the doors to keep them from opening far enough to contact the cowl sides, especially if a strong gust of wind catches it or someone backed it up with the door open and caught it on something, not a rare occurrence in the day when it was common to open the door and look out when backing up (now who put that fence post, tree or building corner there when I wasn't looking???). I found the same kind of damage on my panel's driver's side cowl, and there wasn't a speck of rust on it. typically it would have bent the hinges, but if the door fits the opening the hinges were likely replaced or straightened.
Ford didn't put any undercoating or more than primer (sometimes not even that, just bare metal where the paint didn't hit it) and the trucks were "run hard and put up wet", and the only washing they got was from the rain. dirt built up between doublers and exterior sheet metal which would aborb moisture (and road salt in the North) until the rust would eat thru from the inside. Most of the troublesome areas are where there is a doubler or where pockets were located like at the bottom of the fenders and over the headlights as well as the cab corners and over the doublers on the running boards, Mice like to nest in the inside of the "forehead" over the windshield behind the inside header.

 

Thanks for the education guys!

 

That's what we think got the top of the cab in my '53. You can see some of the nest through the rust hole.

 

Quite likely, mouse/rat urine must be very corrosive! Chewed up cardboard headliner and seat padding made good nest material as well.

 

While it is true that the 53-56 F100s do not have the same stop rods as the earlier F1 series there is a reason for this...the later F100 series trucks have the door hinges mounted inside the body and the design of the hinge itself precludes the need for any other "stop" mechanism to limit the range of motion of the door. Attached are two photos showing a 53-56 series door hinge, one photo is positioned as it would be with the door closed, the other at the widest door open position. As you can see in the photo (second one) where the door is open, the arm of the hinge contacts the two tabs that keep it from opening any further. IF a door opens far enough to contact the cowl, then the most likely cause is the lack of structural integrity of the hinge mounting pocket in the door jamb of the cab.

 

For many of these old trucks sitting out doors, a lot of condensation forms daily on the underside of the roof and dribbles down to the head of the windshield.

 

This is why I love this forum. So many knowledgeable folks here. So it would be safe to assume that if the door hit the cowl and caused the damage in the second photo then there must be some structural integrity compromised, most likely due to corrosion, in the area of the door hinge mounts within the cab?

 

We can speculate and discuss what caused the damage and how much damage there is. We can speculate how much structural deterioration the truck has. A set of very good up close, detail pictures may reveal what we need to know. An on site set of experienced eyes would be best, of course. Ask for such pictures.
Do I see the front wheels setting in the center of the wheel opening? Do I see a sway bar under that truck? What modifications does the seller say the truck has?