Ok, seein as how it came up in another thread, I found it neccesary to create this thread to share my feelings, especially after what I've seen in my own truck, that I am still working hard to fix and reassemble
List of the things I find to be outrageously incorrect
1) exhaust hangers = coat hangers (not sayin I wouldent or havent done the same thing, but its still tacky and wrong)
2) oil pressure gauge, the oil line comes in the cab, up the column then goes down to the gayge under the dash (not under the other gauges, UNDER THE RADIO!!!)
3) wires hangin off the truck that go to and from nothing @ all (makes me wonder if they went to something that I may need to have workin)
4) external trans cooler, hahahahahahahaha, hangs by three wires from the grille in front of the radiator, leaks from both rubber hoses (did till I tightened em up today)
5) horn doesnt work, but yet when I touch the wire hangin from the horns to positive they work
6) trans was "rebuilt" supposedly but the passing gear rod was missing "auto transmission kickdown linkage" (just knabed one from one of my friends parts trucks)
7) tons of other stuff, I could go on for another day, and besides, enough about mine, we wanna hear about yours!!!

 

as said in the other thread, the po thought taking a chunk of insulation out of a wire, wrapping some yellow wire there and then tieing it in to something else was the thing to do. instead of poping the plate with the contacts on the beam select switch back in so it made contact with the switch they tied the hot wire off the light switch into only the low beams, i had no high beams that was a 10 min fix at most.

the guage lights werent working so they made a hole in the guage cluster over the speedo and wired up a light to come on when you turned the head lights on.

there are so many loose wires under the hood that it aint even funny.

relays to who knows what and all sorts of crap like that.

the vaccuum hose for the modualtor on the tranny was hooked to the carb and i couldent figure out why my tranny would be leaking gas.

there are no back up lights and no neutral saftey switch, i have flooded it and started it with my foot to the floor in drive wheelin in my back yard which is nothing but woods but it was kinda fun actually and scared the crap outta my cousin.

im sure there is more that i aint found yet but i will becuase some time soon im rewireing everything with a centech wireing harness. mechanically it is pretty sound and runs stronger than crap, i just wish he would have left the electrical alone.

 

I wish the previous owner of my 79 Bronco wouldn't of drilled holes in the hood to install 5 off road lights. Only one of the damned things worked when I got it, he has some eyelete bolts through the removeable top on the bronco, took off the original door panels and made some extra holes it install a piece of wood raped in black vynle.
Other than the light wiring, the wiring is fine, but de drilled holes in everything!

 

Oh how I hate hole drillers. Some people should not be able to own them. I remember when I bought my truck it did not have a front license plate holder. The sales guy holds the plate up to the bumper and says just drill a couple holes for it.

 

Take one SWB truck, add the following:

2 ea Rural Oklahoma "dueling banjos" father/son hillbillies

1 Donor truck (apparently a longbed)

2 parts Complete lack of understanding of automobile design/safety

1 Gas welding/cutting rig

Apply cutting torch liberally to SWB truck as required to make donor parts "fit".

We're talking concrete rebar welded to hood lock lever, torched rad support to make 6 cyl support accomodate V8 radiator, torched floor tunnel out to clear T18 trans/shift lever. Then, they changed the torch rig and "welded" a piece of 1x1 thinwall square tube to the top of the frame to hold carrier bearing, which was apparently required to "support" the cut-in-the-middle-and-welded-together rear shaft from the donor. Obviously, I'm not about to give their engineering prowess a bonafide road test before it all comes apart.

Or, there's always the aluminum no-name 4-barrel intake with the adapter plate to mount the original 2-barrel.

How about the cobbled up wiring to the non-working no-name cd player? (only 4 splices in the lamp cord/romex/speaker wire wiring to the speaker box!)

The Jeep steel spoke wheels (in rusty chrome!), 3 are bent, 2 hold air, and none of them have anything resembling a roadworthy tire. Hmmm, they may have had a Jeep donor, too, since the steering wheel is a Jeep item as well.

But my all-time favorite has to be the house carpet , cardboard, and rubber floor mats screwed to the floor (what there is of a floor) and firewall to cover the torchery.

Mercifully, the engine (useless 302) actually seems pretty good, and I have a line on a '79 SWB donor truck (which I'm sure will become the actual project).

 

mine has a few, not too bad though
1. mis matched rearends
2. oil pressure gauge to replace the fogged up gauge cluster
3. hammer handle for a gear shifter(works well actually)
4. off road lights wired in when the lights were busted and facing the ground
5. lawnmower steering pinion for a shock mount
6. bailing wire exhaust hanger
7.bailing wire to hold throttle spring
8. so many disconnected wires im suprised it even starts

im sure theirs more i haven't found yet

 

Okay, as many of you drive 70's Fords that were owned by someone else before you, what is the craziest "modifications" done by the previous owner that you have stumbled upon on your truck while doing repairs?

My truck wasn't too bad, they just had EVERYTHING running off of the one wire out of the ignition switch that is hot when running.

 

instead of usising the proper brake shims my p.o. used sawzall blades! im sure there is other stuff, but none stick out like that one!

 

Well it wasn't mine, but I've seen a aftermarket altenator guage installed in such a way that it was charging and supplying power to the whole truck through the guage. The guage caught fire and melted as result.

 

There was a blow out in the rear brake line so the p.o. screwed a spark plug into the mc to plug it up. The worst part about it was that he had to go through the trouble of finding an adapter to fit the spark plug into to fit it into the mc. For that much effort he could of fixed the dang thing the right way.

 

I've no complaints about the PO on my truck, since it was my Dad :-) He installed some nice air-horns, fog-lights (that he never wired up, but I fixed that), tool-boxes and a nice exhaust... only things I wish I could change is the "rope cleats" that the very first owner installed (we bought the truck 1 year old)... handy now with the boxes on and the tonneau, but when I get rid of the boxes eventually they'll be sticking out like a sore thumb.

 

OK how about the old rope continuous loop to the wiper blades? My dad had a 79 f150 installed pneumatic shocks on the back ran lines and fittings to the rear bumper loaded up all my aunts stuff and headed for SC from western NY when he got back, i noticed the truck was sitting kinda funny. Apon further inspection, i noticed two 4x4 blocks wedged between the frame and the axle seems one of the air lines broke loose and hit the exhaust melted let some of the air out then resealed itself. when i asked why the blocks he said when your 300 miles from home and all you have is an old bumper jack and a chunk of wood, you improvise

 

OK......I have the winner.

I went to TORONTO Canada to pick up a parts truck (79 F150) that I drove home. Why so far and in a different country? Well it looked good in the pictures and the exchange rate made it a $400 bargain. About 4-5 hours from Michigan. Duty free because of age, FYI. More good info, they do not salt in Canada, they thro down dirt so truck beds are in decent shape.

Well I opened the hood of a truck to take a look and found a pair of vise grips holding the throttle cable together. I laughed right off and asked him whats up with that. He said he did that about 2 years prior and it worked fine.

 

Household carpet is alright in a pinch. I dyed it the factory color and it looks alright. Much better than metal floors. I cant wait until I can raise the money to exchange the household carpet in mine with actual fitted carpet however.

I have used bailing wire to hook a exaust up, for as long as it took to take it to the muffler shop for a proper repair.

Now for the fun part...

The worst case of P.O. butchery I have seen was on a 1972 ford pickup. Guages didn't work, $3 instrument cluster voltage regulator at the wreckers would have fixed it, so he decided to put in aftermarket guages, instead and hooked up the ammeter in a way to where the whole trucks electrical power was going through the guage. It melted and caught fire. Also putting the guages and screwing them down into the dash pad, that wasn't cracked or damaged before was dumb.

Factory horn button didn't work, so replace it with a switch drilled into the steering wheel.

Backup lights didn't work, so hook them up to a toggle switch...

Heater core leaked, so replaced whole entire heater system with one out of a Gillig bus. Cut and drill firewall to mount and fit. No ducting for defrosters.... etc...

For things that would have cost about $150 dollars to fix, will now cost close to $1500 to put right.

Scary eh?

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And a word of caution, don't confuse the factory optional accessory wires with something the P.O. has done or unpluged etc... Some of these wires and connectors will be empty, and not go to anything because the truck did not come with that option. Even if the truck didn't come with a radio, or a cargo light, as an example, it is still wired for one. You can usually tell the differences however. Factory connector with nothing pluged in as opposed to, dangling wires cut to pieces...

 

the guy I bought my truck from said that the temp gauge was weird. If you set at idle, the guage actually got warm after a while, when driving down the highway, the guage read cold. He put in a new t'stat and said nothing changed. Drove it that way for 2 years.

After I bought the truck I found the problem, a PO before him had installed an Edelbrock manifold and put the water temp sender IN THE #5 INTAKE RUNNER -