Whats going on guys? I am looking at buying a vehicle, preferibly a Ford, for some off-roading fun. I found a 88 Bronco for sale, $200 bucks, but it needs a motor put in, which the guy already has. Im going to look at it tomorrow, so I have to ask is there anything I should look specifically at? Thankyou for your time!

 

How bad is it ragged out, and if the motor is in good enough shape to run.
For $200 there has to be alot wrong or he just wants it gone.
if you want a 4wd play toy, you'll be better off w/a ford, b/c it won't break down and leave you strainded like most chevys will right when your in the middle of it all.

 

Check the Tailgate!, does the window work? it has rust? (open it and check the lower border), and check the chassis for marks of serious damage (if it has any irregularly made holes around the tips of the I beams the truck could have been involved in a serious accident and the chassis has been straightened).

The steering pump will whine a little, but if the noise is bad it means the pump is about to give up.

 

Is it a 4x4? Hopefully that's in working order too. When we shopped around for one, there were several that looked great but the 4x4 didnt work.

 

Personally I would stay away from a $200 bronco.

 

LoL that's so true, but i cant really say much first car i ever bought was a saab 9000 turbo for 50 bucks and it ran fine person just wanted it gone, so could be the same?

 

That's what I figured, it's either the guy really wants to get rid of it, or it is a POS.

 

I put $20 on it being a POS.

I remember about 4 years ago when I was looking for my Bronc. It took me about 3 months to find it. And thats not because I was picky. They were all JUNK.

All the ones I Looked at were priced over $3500, and were talking 1990 or 1991 models. Most smoked, had salvage titles, one even appeard to be in a flood.

So really i dont want to know what a $200 bronco looks like.

I would just save up till you can buy a nice one. Probably will save you $$$ in the long run.

 

A buddy of mine bought a 82 Bronco for $800 and used it as a daily driver for about 1 year until he found him a better one, and the only thing wrong with it was it had a few normal rust spots. When he traded it in, he got $1,000 for it(trade in) and then bought a 94 EB w/zero rust.

 

Most of the 4x4 problems are non-working auto hubs, and that's about $100 in parts to fix, and even if they were working, one would want to change them, anyhow. The rest is usually the electric shifter, and it's not too costly or difficult to fix that either.

If I had to buy one, I would actually look for one that has great body but bad auto hubs -- get at least a few hundred bucks off the price because of that.