I bought a new truck......

New to me, that is. 1971 F150, 302 with 2 wheel drive and an automatic. Paid $500 dollars for it. She's not too pretty, but I'll just call it patina. Doesn't run yet. I can get it to cough and wheeze a little, so I know it'll run, but it's gonna take a shopping trip to rock auto to get her up and going.

Sorry, it looks like a trot line weight to me.

Gott'a love them old trucks! Simple to work on with so much class! Bet all the neighbors will be envious of you when you cruz past!

Got a whiskey demple on the rear fender.

I had a 1979 with a 302. Keep an eye on your oil pressure

Saddle blanket seat cover. Whooo hoooo fancy!!!

I had a 67 4x4 with a 360. Wish I had that one back and a 69 Cougar.

I had an old "68" Ford Custom with a 302 in it.When I went to the gas station,,I would say fill it up with oil and check the gas.

My 79 had a 429 with high rise intake and a 750 holley carb. Kind of a sleeper.

Nice find! A "Shade Tree Mechanic" can fix about anything on a truck like that. The body doesn't look too bad. Where I live a vehicle that old would most likely be a heap of rust.

Love them old trucks ...put some weight in the bed throw some snow tires on the rear and go trapping. Auto or manual?
Cant beat the price.

Had one just like it, even same color.. Bought it for a dollar from coworker who lost his license to dui and I bought it so we could keep getting to work with the tools.
What a truck.
Jim

Looks newer than a 71, Id guess 74.75 looking at the body lines.

Nice truck. Good price , will always be worth at least or more than that , and will increase in value.

Had a '68 with a straight 6 and a 3 on the tree , 2wd. Solid and simple.

Learned to drive in one of these without a shifter. The column shifter broke so my dad installed one on the floor. Then that broke. We had a hole in the floor right over the transmission and a tire iron on the front seat. You would clutch and stick the tire iron through the hole in the floor to manually operate the two shift levers on the top of the transmission. It wasn't bad once you learned how to do it. By the time I was driving it, it was just a truck that ran around the farm.

I love them old trucks! That one is from an era where truck was still a truck. The carpeted, cloth-seated, air-conditioned, power-everything garage queens of today don't compare!

Yeah the title and driver's door says 1977. I'm not so sure, because it's got points and from what I could find, ford trucks had duraspark in 77. So I'm not totally convinced it's a 77.

A few before and after pics of some comet scrubbing.....






A coat of BLO afterwards will preserve the "patina" look. (If ya wanna call it that )

The best thing for that is new rods and main bearings and new oil pump.last a lot longer.
Nice ride. Had many of the old fords.

Nice truck. Good find

Nice beater!

Paint it white. Just like in Gran Torino!

It's alive!!!!! Well, sort of. It cranks now and the electrical stuff works.

I found a burned up fusible link, so I replaced it with a regular in line fuse. Fusible links suck. I still had no power, so I found a splice a few inches from the old fusible link had failed, it wasn't passing any current through, so I replaced it as well.

Now it all works. Still wouldn't crank though. Took a little digging, but I found the neutral safety switch was boogered up. A good jiggle got it going. Next step is to find a new carb for it. I started going through the carb, and found the throttle shaft wiggles in it's hole, and more importantly, the spring that holds the accelerator pump arm is broken. It'll never be right that way. I could buy a whole new throttle shaft and install bushings in the carb, but I'm hoping to find a decent junkyard carb I can rebuild.

Next step is to install this big pile of parts.....

More is coming, too. The radiator leaks, so that's gotta be taken care of. I can turn the motor by hand several degrees each way without the rotor in the distributor turning, so the timing chain is trash. It's probably one of the old plastic coated ones with the plastic all broken off. Plus it's getting a full tune up....plugs, wires, a new distributor (old one is worn out, the shaft wobbles) air filter, etc. Then once all that's done, it'll finely start and drive, so I can take it down the road and find out what it needs for brakes and such

Nice!
What do you think it needs to get running?


Nevermind.....I just saw the above comment. [s][/s]

Rather then try to piece one together from parts here is one for $77
2 bbl carb

Give it a look anyway.

That one looks like it doesn't have the linkage for the kickdown lever for an automatic transmission. Hard to tell in the pic, but I don't see it.

Got the timing cover off, and the chain was loose as a goose. Like 1 1/2 of play side to side in the chain loose. Also it had skipped a couple teeth, so there was no way it was ever going to run like that.

Just like I suspected, it had the plastic covered cam gear, and the plastic had worn down and some had broken off.

Now going to have to drop the pan. Those plastic shavings will pull up against the screen on the oil pick up tube and cause you to loose oil pressure. Been there done that. Bet if go to the site for the carb and have your numbers can find a match as well.

Loosegoose - did you figure out the year? The grill is not from older than a1977. Cannot tell from the rest at this distance.

Lug - my new F-350 with power everywhere and everything is more of a truck than I have ever experienced before. The driving experience is like a cross between a Mustang and an army tank. It accelerates faster than an airplane I used to fly. Plus it can masterfully tow, control, and stop a huge load. It is extremely comfortable and very cool looking too.

Sweet truck!

It's definitely a 77, that somebody has hacked up a little. In 77 it was supposed to have duraspark ignition, but this truck still has points. In the process of making the electrical work, I could all the hacked up wires inside the harness. Why someone felt the need to go back to o points I don't know,but I'm leaving it that way for now.

Already have an oil pan gasket on the way.

500 running

But

Found
On
Road
Dead. Nah

Hope it doesn't cost you much more!!!

Hey now. It was found in a parking lot dead, not on the road

Well that's Some different

But still hope it doesn't break your bank

Wonder why the west coast mirrors on a f150?
Any luck getting specs from the VIN?

In a lot of ways thats a LOT better than the new truck's on the lot. You see a lot of those trucks around Alaska because they are tired of the new trucks breaking down....and not being able to fix them.

First
On
Race
Day

Lol.......

Fix
Or
Repair
Daily

Fantastic
Old
Reliable
Drive

Had a 78 F-100 short box -3 on the tree,inline 6-fantastic light truck would go places where 4x4's would get stuck,and would start at 50 below after sitting for a week at the trailhead.

Nice.

My 74 f250 4x4 still has the sticker on the valve cover

In 1993, I bought a 1983 Dodge W350 with 69,000 miles on it. I got a little over 90,000 on it now. I used it for hauling food for the food shelf and wood originally. It's got a 360 engine and loves gas. It sits for extended periods and doesn't always want to start like a fuel injected engine does. That's the downside of carburetors, IMO.

*******
Old
Rebuilt
Dodge

I worked in a Ford dealership when the new 75s came out. First year for unleaded fuel. There were some major problems with poor metal used for valve guides and rod/main bearings. They've come a long ways!
I've owned some good Fords. The worst one I bought in Beatrice!!

Any updates?

A 77 ranger xlt 150 short bed 4x4 stick shift would be my dream truck.

EMP resistance ?
no seriously some people worried about that type of thing

probably more realistic some one replaced the engine at some point and had a runner that had points. available and swapped it in.

yes with a 300 strait 6

standard 8 foot bed would be fine also

I bought some plugs for it, and I was sold some 14mm thread plugs. I go to replace them, and the engine has the older style 18mm thread plugs. Ford made the switch sometime in the mid 70s, so I think you're exactly right, someone replaced the entire engine, distributor and all, with an older (but hopefully lower milage) engine.

Awesome - I've got a dent side 73 (or is it a 71 - can't remember) f250 4x4 explorer that's been sitting behind my barn for 10 years. A buddy of mine owns it. This summer I asked him how much he'd want for the title. I've looked at the old dog so long I've fallen in love with it.

To blow up!!!

It's alive!!!! For real this time! Got her up and running, but what a chore. I got a cheap junkyard carb and rebuilt it, but one of the accelerator pump cover screws was stripped, so I had to helicoil it. Got it all put back together, pre-set timing with a test light, and she snapped right off. Didn't want to stay idling, because I have the choke held open, I've got to get a manual choke kit for it. Once it warmed up it still didn't stay running, so I backed out the idle mixture screws from 2 turns to 3 1/2 turns, and now it runs, well, okay ish. Still a little rough at idle, i think it's got a vacuum leak I'll have to chase down. The belts are super squeaky, I'll have to get new belts. But she runs and idles and pulls forward and backward in the driver, so we're gettin somewhere.

Screw the radiator cap off and drive a Chevy in under it 😎

Don't tempt me. That chevy will run good for a long time, as long as you use motorcraft parts in it

Nice. Love the 8 foot beds.

spent the weekend working on my sons "new" truck 1988 Chevrolet S-10 5 speed with the 2.5L 4 cylinder.

picked it up for 270 and a used battery I had from the truck he rolled mid August. from a freinds dad who had ambitions for it that they didn't really have time for.

started and ran , not well but ran

siphoned all the gas before we bought it and put 5 gallons of fresh gas in it then it ran much better and we could drive it the few hundred yards home.

the key was stuck in and in the on position , 4 ways were stuck on , the radio didn't work. meeded new wipers they were rotten, the hose for the wiper fluid was disconnected

radio was some loose wires the boy fixed that

the key cylinder was $20 dollars , rented the steering wheel puller and lock plate compressor and took that all apart go the ignition working and the 4-ways fixed tool rental $10

front brakes look ok , need to pull the rear and look at them.

took it for a little drive yesterday to the auto parts when they gave me the wrong filter for my truck. my truck was up on the ramps with no oil no filter and 15 miles back to the store.

I told him he should name the new truck Coon Killer cause he is never swerving to miss another coon ever , that was how he ended up rolling the previous truck my other truck and he paid for a little more than half this truck with his coon money. no not fur money but money he got paid to get them out of the barns and away from the chicken coops.

it will be a nice little trapping truck , the bed is solid

when he gets some more money 2 tires