somewhere along the line a complete moron owned my truck (79 f100). this person i now refer to as the butcher. ive pretty much gone from bumper to bumper fixing/replacing broken, wore out, or just plane wrong parts. the butcher, i have so far discovered: bent the heater core, didnt put in the a/c ducting correctly, set the idle too high which i believe was the cause of a broken reverse band, wired a radio directly to the battery, one head light was out, broke a screw off in a window regulator, put in the oil pan gasket in so horribly it was almost cut in 2, diconnected the vaccum advance, timed the ignition wrong, ran the exuast under the transmission( i had to cut a secdtion out to drop the tranny) with some rather bad welding, the speedometer cable was sitting on the exuast and almost burned through, muffler is blowing on the parking brake cable and the rear axle, tire are to wide and rubbing on who knows what, valve cover gaskets were overtightened and leaking. thats all i can think of right now.

when i bought the truck i knew the master cylinder was blown, so i replaced that. the other day i had the stop short and the brake light started comeing on. turns out it was a blown wheel cylinder. while replacing the wheel cylinder, i went ahead and replaced both sides, i found 1 brake drum had 1/4" groves cut into it. all because some ******* didnt replace the brakeshoes which were down to bare metal. after finishing the rear brakes and replacing the drum i moved to the front brakes. 1 pad was down to the metal and the others were very low. i replaced them, then broke the bolt on the bottom of the caliper (my own fault, but it was surpisingly easy to get out). on closer inspection of the bolt, it looked like someone used a grinder on the head of it. checked the other side, same thing. i put new bolts in both sides then put the wheels back on, only to realize the reason for the ground down bolts.the wheels were too small. so i had to grind down brand new bolts.

sorry i know this isnt really technical but i had to rant. just curious if anyone else has stories like this.

 

Who's the crazier one (or more moronic?), the guy who sold the truck with a bunch of problems or the guy who bought the truck with a bunch of problems? Just something to consider. I bought my own headache, so I'm in the crazy one who bought a truck with problems column. At least your making it safe and more reliable.

My wiring is a nightmare. I need to rewire one day but right now everything is fixed to the best of my ability before rerunning new wire.

 

That's a rather impressive list of stupid. The PO of my truck only botched the radio install. He didn't do good maintenance though. The exhaust was rusted out in sections, the bed was rusted out all along the bottom, and the tires were horrible, the sizes didn't match. It seems to have been leaking oil for over a decade. He just drove it a couple of blocks to the river to go fishing, so he didn't worry about it too much.

 

Mine sounds like your fishing truck. I was going to fix it up, but now I just drive it a few miles a week to the Depot and back.

 

Ha. on my buddy, Josh's truck i am finding all kinds of things

A 300 feet on old wiring not used
B aftermarket cruise control wire nutted in
C alarm wire nutted in
D Licenceplate does not make a suttable floor patch
E fiberglass does not make suttable floor patch
F when installing cab lights, use silicone around the screws and base
G when wiring something use fuses and grommets

 

i got a good deal on my truck so...i guess you get what you pay for. ive found plenty of wires that go to nothing. the bed is rusted through in a few places but its still strong, i think someone left gravel or dirt sitting in it. and the cab corners are pretty rusty but i can understand that.

 

Well I cant complain because my 77 F250 was free but the wiring is a mess, looks like the oil is caked on mixed with lots of dirt and sand but it runs and dosent smoke. Although thr lifterd sre ticking like a stopwatch. It was given to me because it didnt start but when i got under the truck to take off to get it tested it was being held on by acouple of threads on each bolt. It was still good but when a friend at tne parts store told me that it was still under warantee he swaped out for a fresh one and along with some new battery cables, cap, rotor, plugs, and plug wires it started and runs. so for what i paid for it i guess a headache is part of the deal

 

Lots of crude and lazy stuff on mine.

My pet peave is not using the correct fasteners correctly, and man this thing is loaded with that.

One example, not critical but annoying as hell were the two screws holding the access cover for the flywheel/torque converter. I can only guess why it wound up like it did, but the p.o. used way too long phillips head wood! screws, with nuts and fender washers as spacers.

Another example is that only four of the six tranny bellhousing bolts were tight and one was different, and wrong.

I don't understand any of that because it is TONS easier and much better to keep the original bolts in order and reuse them.

 

Mine came with a leaky sunroof, completely rotted floorboards, and a 30gal aux gas tank with no sending unit in leu of the original dual tank setup. Plus some other crap I cant remember.

 

the bracket that connects the transmission to the cross member has 2 bolts, both had backed out and were rattling around inside the threads. which are now destroyed, i used jb weld to put them back in

 

I'm right there with you guys with the wiring headaches! Most wires on mine have been hacked and spliced from the front to the back. I press the brake pedal and the brakes don't light up but the light behind the heater/radio controls do. Wiring is the WORST part of a restoration.

 

Ok, 78 F-150 4x4 I bought for parts. All this done by p/o. Here goes:

-Shifter on column busted, had to select gear by reaching down to the side of the trans-cover removed

-Spray painted most of it oarnge while drunk, got 3/4 of the way done and passed out. Never finnished the job after that, and didn't tape off a damned thing.

- no inner wheel wells, or weatherstriping, so int (what was there)was covered in mud.

-wireing nightmare.

-Bed bolted down with one bolt in front left corner, one weld holding down right rear, rear bumper held on with grade nothing deck bolts.

-lifted in rear with homemade 8" lift blocks and stock cracked leaf springs with too short of drive shaft- fell out.

-lifted in front with 6"coils, and two inch homemade blocks under spring cups...with stock c bushings and radius brackets. When you turned, it lifted the front of the truck. tie rod also bent.

-bondo was 1 1/2" thick above rear wheels and on one bed side. front fenders/ grill smashed yet from a rollover wreck, all they did was swap cabs and hood to put it back on the road.

- no int panels, or window cranks/ inner door handles.

-two oil dipsticks- was a car motor with a truck pan.

-Front driveshaft was extended, but was too long and binding/ bent

-broken slider window in back- duct taped shut

-side mount plastic gas tank from who knows what

- bolts welded between pipes and frame as rear exhaust hangers

- broken rear cab crossmember

- no vent hoses on rears, but he liked mud...I'm sure I forgot some stuff too.


Reason I bought it was it had 35"x 12.5" Procomp X terains on it, with only 10% tread wear, and really nice factory newer ford alloys. Paid $400, figureing that was $800 just in the tires alone. Otherwise it made a great parts truck for my situation at the time. Scrapped the rest of what was junk and made most of my money back, plus had almost new 35"s.

 

Perhaps then it's a blessing that my wiring was wrapped around the transmission crossmember. Looks like it's better to start from scratch.

Yep it was that bad. And the lighting wiring is down low on the list of things needed.

Partial list:


Brakes; bad booster, firewall linkage exposed to weather and rusted SOLID! calipers stuck, improper retainer screw for the calipers. First fix

Steering; I think the p.o. that installed a junk body lift accidently pulled the lower joint apart and lost the lugs inside the bell? joint. That and the obligatory power steering ram leak. Partially fixed. I'm looking for a 78-79 F250 power steering gear.

Shifter; One of the p.o.'s thought that the cheapest, most basic Chinese aftermarket floor shifter would be better then the Ford column shifter. NOT!!!! I have good "feel" and I had a difficult time knowing what gear the thing was in. Transfer case shifter was out of adjustment and of course had improper screws in it. No **** either, so I made one. Early fix.

Engine; Engine left exposed to the elements and some water got inside, needed new carb, had the CHEAPEST plug wires I have ever seen, really badly done intake gasket repair that leaks like a seive, throttle linkage was wired on and poorly adjusted, engine was crooked. Vacuum advance not hooked up. Vacuum modulator not hooked up. No choke of any kind. Runs great now, surprisingly it doesnt smoke at all and I'm working on the oil leaks. Still I'm expecting it to not last long. I have another 460 to build when it goes.

Cooling; Radiator had a big dumb hole in it, someone accidently put some kind of tool through it. Heavy duty radiator on a light duty radiator support so about 20% of the rad was blocked off. Rear mount radiator, front mount radiator support (using long bolts). Auxilary tranny cooler mounted flush onto the radiator support bulkhead with NO air outlet. Bypassed heater core. Here's a duesy; The left front body lift puck was missing, and the left front side of the body would of course bob up and down when driving and the driver door wouldn't work right. I mocked it up to the right height somehow and discovered that if you did the fan belt would rub on the lower radiator hose. My guess, judging from the rest of the hack work on the truck, is that the po's solution was to simply leave the lift puck out. Mostly fixed. I don't need to work on the heater yet so that's still bybassed.

Exhaust; It had a nearly new 2 1/2" dual exhaust on it when I bought it and sounded great. Come to find out when I took it off to put headers on it that the passenger side pipe right out of the manifold was necked down to 2" to squeeze it in between the frame and the motor, and pinched for the same reason a little lower and routed in the dumbest way possible on the way back. And I'm 99% sure the mufflers are on backwards. Headers are a great fix!

Body; rusty, broken and battered, I'm replacing it all.

Why did I buy it? Because it's cool, it's an F250 4WD with a 460, the frame is in good shape, and they're great looking trucks. And I like the wheels. And the brush guard. And the color. And it has a menacing look to it.

It's also satisfying to think were it was, were it's at and were it's going to be. Sure some things I wasn't expecting, but you gotta expect that.

And thanks to all the people on FTE who have helped me so much with knowing my truck.

 

I forgot another good one from my p.o.:

The rear bumper; At some previous point in the life of my truck, it had recieved a complete body change, cab, clip, bed, bumpers, etc. Since it's a narrow framed highboy and the po's donor truck was apparently a 78-79, the rear heavy duty step bumper wasn't a direct swap. Instead of doing the right thing and getting or making new brackets that adapt the 78-79 bumper to the narrow frame, he put spacers between the brackets and the frame. Ok, maybe, if you did it right.

He used 1/2"NPT x 1" or so pipe nipples as the spacers. No chit.

Fixed. I found a nice one from a SCS at my favorite local salvage yard.

 

The Previous Kid who owned my truck reversed the firing order on those little plug wires,(One for each cylinder,I forget about what they are called)