Hi all,

I recently received my grandad's 1964 f100. This truck was his until the day he died, then it became my grandmothers. My dad, and his siblings learned to drive in it!!

My question is....What is a great place to look in starting a resto project??

The truck is in pretty decent shape, sans its not running. The motor is fine, just needs some tweaking.....Im going to get it running first and play with it for a while, then go for a full resto on it....

Any advice before I get started would be greatly appreciated...

 

By "full resto", I assume a frame-off. I have done this and my best suggestion is to keep a journal with drawings, lable (mark) and box ALL parts and take your time (I once spent 2 months on one fender). It can be great fun.
Dono

 

Yeah--- I have a two car garage that came with my house.( sits off around in the back). This will be a perfect place for the resto.
I am 25 now, and with the pocket change that I have, I am planning on it being a five year project.

This is my 1st ever resto project. Dont have much of a clue, but im willing to dive into it. Plus I have two family members on my same street that are great mechanics/thinkers.

Any info of any literature i should purchase before I begin?

 

Phil, Sounds like you are on the right track. You might ought to drive and enjoy your grandads for a while before you dive into it. Cleaning it up and under shelter can extend the life for a long time.

John

 

My recommendation: get it running and drive it for awhile, even if it's ugly. This will help you determine the condition of everything and solve some problems you may have up front. It's no fun doing a complete teardown and rebuild only to find out the lights never worked to begin with, and you have no clue why as you've touched everything.
Nice thing about trucks is they are easy to work on and tear down to a bare frame. You probably couldn't pick a better vehicle as a first project.
That said, a complete resto takes a long time and a lot of work. You will also get to a point where all you have is a garage full of busted, rusty parts and get very depressed. Hard to get past that, but if you do, you'll be fine.
Don't get obsessed with doing a Pebble Beach quality job. If it's nicer than most stuff on the street, that should be acceptable. You want to still drive it, right? Unless you plan on showing it with the AACA nobody will care if your floorboards aren't buffed to a show shine. It's easy to get obsessed with making it perfect, but it's a vehicle, and it's going to get stone chips and dirt on it no matter what you do.
BTDT, not 'restoring' any more cars, just 'refurbishing' them. It's way more fun and they get done sooner.