Well, I'm sure many of us have purchased used vehicles before, I was wondering simply what are the worst repairs by previous owners have you seen. Virtually everything that the previous owner of my truck indicated that he repaired and some he didn't mention had to be redone correctly with the correct parts.

Some of the repairs required:

Driveshaft Carrier Bearing - originally repaired with wire to tie it out of the way

Upper intake plenum - the center torx bolt was cross threaded, completely stripped out, and about a quarter inch out of the intake. As a result of the cross threading the lower intake had to be changed as it was cracked.

Valve Covers - an attempt was made to change the gaskets but they were never torqued down, on the drivers side the cork gasket wasn't even compressed resulting in an obviously major oil leak..... the passenger side was better as it appeared to have never been changed.

Spark plugs - I don't think there were more than 3 plugs that were actually the same. there were bosch, autolite and motorcraft plugs in it when I bought it, some longer and shorter, at least the autolite and motorcraft plugs appeared to be correct for the truck.

There are more smaller issues such as the exhaust and wiring but after the simple repairs listed above the truck runs 10x better then when I bought it, and he used it as a daily driver.

So, I would like to know what other surprises people have found.

Mike

 

Did you but that truck from my father???? or my uncle... Any way, many times I have seen things like that, partially because I have to follow and fix what they have done but vehicles I buy too. I bought a Grenade once for parts, and the driver's door was bungee corded shut, gets a little scary when it starts to suck open a bit, the front end was shot too. I bought an 83 Trans am with the crossfire injection, t tops and all the goodies. This car had been beat so bad that both doors were stuck from failed latches after the hinge pins wore out, they were climbing in by leaving a t top loose and then rolling the window down. The throttle bodies were out of sync, the speedo cable was broken, trans mount failed, the headlights had one of the motors removed, and the frame was screwed to the fascia. After fixing all that, it ran pretty darn good for as beat as it was.

 

Well got a Mustang one time that the oil pan on it was missing half the bolts so they caked it with gasket sealer and the ones going thru the timing cover they just put wing nuts on the top of them, i think they were too small to stay by themselves. Got a Dodge were the radiator is held in with 2 peices of wire at the top , no idea who the genious was who figured that one out. Why does every one tie up things with wire?! With the amount of wire they use they could have bought the bolts or somthing.

 

I had a '73 VW Thing that some moron had cut two giant 6" holes in the metal door pockets for speakers. Ruined the doors in a rare car that was only made for two years, plus it is a really stupid place since the pockets are accessible from the top (thus making the backside of the speakers exposed from the top). Also, some genius at an oil change place cross threaded my mother-in-law's oil pan drain plug and got lots of tiny metal shavings in the pan.

 

I bought a 78 Buick Skylark one time. It had an Old's 350 in it. So I'm driving down the street and the transmission just stops working. I pull over and look underneath the car and notice a trail of tranny fluid. Then I notice that a couple of the tranny lines are ZIP TIED on. Who in their right mind would think a zip tie would hold a tranny line on?

Anyways, I was close to a hardware store so I went and bought a couple hose clamps and some tranny fluid. 15 minutes later I was driving down the road again.

 

The body on the truck I own now was done from cheap aftermarket panels, doors and bed skins.

 

Now that you mention it, maybe I should check my tranny lines lol

 

I just laughed out loud at that one. sort of off the mark but I was picking my truck up from the shop once and the girl behind the counter was all covered with oil and really ****ed off, she was cursing about this guy outside (picture the worst steroetype of preppy college spoiled brat) who had his lexus pulled up out front and is talking to one of the mechanics. She told me that he just pulls up and says his car isn't steering right and asks them to take a look (they are a good local mom and pop type garage) so they said yes and the first thing this girl did (b/c all the mechanics were busy) was to check his power steering fluid, pretty simple fix right?. It was full of oil and he didn't believe her, said he had only taken it to lexus dealers for maintinence before so how could that happen and she didn't know what she was talking about. On my way out I looked at the engine and there was oil spilled all over it, like someone didn't know where to put it and tried to pour it in several places and slopped a lot around...

 

AS my grandfather used to say on the ranch. "If it can't be fixed with bailing wire, it cant be fixed." I remember a lot of the stuff on that place being held togther with wire and JB weld

 

My '73 F100, I think that truck was put together with leftover parts from other trucks. One plus about though is somehow it ended up with front disc brakes, entire exhaust is held on with coat hangers, has a points distributor but still has the box for electronic ignition, has emblems from other years/models of trucks. The VIN doesn't match the engine or transmission in the truck.

 

When I bought my current F-100 I did not look closely at the rear bumper, I just noted that it was a weld on bumper/hitch job and most of the work was hidden by the angle iron and tube. One day I dropped a log that weighed about 1,000 pounds on it rolling it off the bed and once side completely let go. Luckily I never towed with it and I was in my driveway when it happened.

Turned out the previous owner, to get this wonder of a bumper welded on, ARC welded two stacked 1/2" inch plates (total one inch thickness) more then the height of the frame, to the outside of the frame starting from the spring hanger backwards to two inches out beyond the frame.

He welded the tube/angle iron to that. I could only wish he did as poor of a job on the bumper that he did on the plate.

The ARC welds were so hard I could not cut through them with a sawzall metal blade (teeth just broke off) to make it even with the frame and the cut off wheel was hardly touching it. So, I ended up buying a grinder just so I could grind the ends even with the frame so I could out a new bumper off. No way I can even drill through the plate because he welded the plate so much.

So, I think that is the worse butcher job I have ever seen on a vehicle I actually bought. Though I have seen worse working in a service department.

 

--Falcon based Ranchero made from two clips. Pop-rivited together.


--galvanized for use with wood in non-critical applications only lag bolt to hold the door closed on a Pinto driven by my dad's criminal cow milker (him, not the cows). Asked dad if he didn't think that would be a problem if they got trapped in the car....

--in Hot Rod mag, photo accompanying a column entitled "In Praise of Butchery"--an auto trans held to the cross member by two very large hose clamps.

--I forgot this one--my own brother. He traded a '65 Mustang 6 auto because it was a used car in those days and the ex. manifold busted while he was out of town. So he trades it for this semi-metalic green Pinto wagon, a fine '73, methinks, with the auto trans. Anyway, he is the traveling sales type and drives all over the state. Meanwhile, this thing is slower than grass growing, so he takes it to some otherwise qualified hotrodding fellow who installs the Offy dual port manifold, 390 CFM 4BBL, header, recurved ignition and possibly who knows what else. Now it runs pretty good.... and the gas crunch hits. Well, it ain't getting no 30 MPG--maybe 20. And the tiny tank ain't cutting it. So, off to the scrappy he goes and buys a 14 gallon tank out of a Maverick or some such unit. Out comes the panel cutter and zip out goes the spare tire tub in the back of this wagon. The new tank is fixed in place using 2x6's and proper gas tank strapping. sheet metal screws and a piece of flat over the tank and pull the carpet back. Oooops, forgot the filler. Had a muffler shop bend up a piece of exhaust pipe.....

So he drove that thing till one fall day when he took it to a Toyota dealer. The sales boys drove it and said "it runs pretty good for a Pinto", and gave him a nice trade in on a new Corolla SR5. (a fine jewel in it's own right)

Later that same day, the Toyota boys are on the phone screaming something about "why didn't you tell us about all this stuff......."

A year or so later a guy comes in to the Mobil I was working at--I say "Hey, I bet that has a 4bbl, etc etc. It still ran and he was semi happy about it.

Guess never pulled the carpet up in back....

 

Best ones are when WOOD is used to reinforce rusted out parts. Was looking at an old 66 Ford F250 that looked fairly clean, crawled under it and found the cab supported by 2"X4"s. Also saw a mid 90's Ford that looked pretty good with a fresh paint job. Crawled under it and a huge hole and dent in the outside of the bed was patched with plywood & deck screws. They then covered it with bondo (actually smoothed it out very well) and painted the whole truck.

Also saw a old pickup that was missing on one piston, owner tried everything to get it to fire - then the compression test showed "0". Dropped the oil pan and found that the rod on that cylinder was unbolted (scarred crank shaft) and TACK WELDED to the block to keep it from dropping down on to the crank. Put the oil pan back on and drove it for 6 months then sold it.

 

After buying my 95 f150 with the 300 in it, i noticed it ran rough so it got the usual tune-up. THe number one plug boot was cut in half and just electrical taped together and reinstalled, the rotor was put in wrong and half ruined, just reinstalled. The air intake for behind the grill wasn't connected and the front air dam was held on with two cable ties. Luckily that is the worst I have found on the truck so far

 

I just bought a old truck that has a transplanted 302 in it. The guy I bought it off of said " it just needs a good tune up... doesn't knock or smoke" Famous last words. The distributor was in wrong, the vacuum advance was hooked to the vent in the carb. had to rebuild the carb. when I got to finally got it to run .... I don't have worry about mosquitoes