Who's bought a truck and then found...

[BIG69GMC]

Its happend to me that I have bought this gmc. First thing was the 100ft of wiring for the spot lights, not fused run directly to a hot terminal on the fuse block. Then had to change out the gas tank due to bent filler lip and found it had the wrong tank in there. This one had a vent that I don't use. It was plugged with a broken off #2 pencil!! Some my friends smoke and I'm just glad we didn't blow up. Its been 2yrs and everytime I touch a new area of the truck I haven't worked on, I always find something else. But not giving up cuz its coming along nice*
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[Shaky]

Decent trucks are tough to come by around here, so that meant buying off the internet based on pictures. It looked good when I picked it up except now I could tell that the paint wasn't original.

Then there were the bondo cracks on the roof. You can see from the pics how that went. Oh well, I still don't regret buying it - the rest of it was in great shape. Buying a 45-year-old truck sight unseen from the original owner's daughter (he passed) involves a little gambling.

[Dano69c10]

This is from a thread I posted about 5 years ago;

Originally Posted by Dano69C10

I thought I wouldn't say anything about my '70 c-10 that I bought on eBay, but it is getting to a point of frustration that I can't deal with. When I went to get the truck, the hood would not open, PO tells me it's a broken driverside hood hinge. We get the hood open and everything in the engine compartment looks fine. He starts up the motor and it sounds killer! He knows I live 30 miles away, looks me in the eyes and tells me he'd drive the truck anywhere. The truck is straight and no rust so I pay the man and head for home. I start the truck, put her in gear and away I go happy to score a swb fleetside.
1) I go to replace the hood hinge with a good used hinge I have. I remove the hinge at the hood no probs, I remove the bolts on the fender and two come out OK, but the third one (which is a silver grade 5 bolt from the PO) has a detached weld nut and spins freely. Great a 10 minute job turns into a 1 hour job. Finally have to chisel out the third bolt. Install the the hinge,I'm pissed but the job is done.
2) I go out in the morning and there is a puddle of tranny fluid under the truck, what now! Turns out the tranny is leaking from the front and rear seals, OK I say, some members assure me it's an easy job and it's not too bad, but a Saturday is shot to hell. I say to myself no prob jst a little work to get the truck roadworthy.
3) I drive to truck to home depot and the drivers window goes off track and the passenger window is stuck closed. Turn around and go home, driver and passenger regulators are shot and the vent windows are crooked. I open the vent windows and they won't close. I say to myself, you should have checked the window operations before you paid the man, my bad. The windows are so heavily tinted, so I replace the door windows, vent windows and regulators with some used ones I have. This takes the good part of the day since some screws are rusted in the vent window and regulator. Chiseling, drilling and retapping, I'm good to go.
4) I want to replace the late model bucket seats back to a stock bench seat. I look at the bottom of the bucket seats and the PO used black pipe as spacers between the seats and the cab floor with some cheap bolts which he drilled through a pristine floor. I thank God that the bolts didn't snap as I was driving to work, and go to remove the bolts. The outer bolts by the doors are cake to remove, but the innners are not accessable because the rears are right at the trailing arm crossmember and the fronts are on top of the flow masters. Out comes the sawsall, and with the vengeance of an ancient samuri I cut those suckers out. The seat have back pockets and in these back pockets have to be about 30-40 condoms (brand new in the package). Disgusted I throw them away, and then the wife comes in later asking me where those condoms in the trash came from, I tell her, but I can tell by the look in her eye she is either pissed because I didn't check the truck before I brought it home from the PO or she thinks I'm a freaking perv. The only good thing to happen is that the stock bench goes in without a hitch.
5) I drive the truck to work, park in a great spot. Go to lock the drivers door and the tumbler won't turn. It was working fine, but of course it is not working now! I'm so pissed, I just leave the truck unlocked the whole day not caring if someone steals the truck. Get out of work and there the truck is, giving me a sh!~-eating grin. I go home and replace both locks with with a used set I have at home. I think OK, it will get better. After all I haven't had to buy any parts, and I'm slowly cleaning out my parts stash so maybe it's a good thing.
6) Driving to work on a rainy morning and the cab windows fog up (probably because I'm nervous as hell wondering what is going to fall apart next.) I turn on the fan switch and it works! I Go to the AC/Heater controls and set the bottom lever (good), set the middle lever (good), go to move the top lever to defrost and without even applying hard pressure the lever breaks and falls to the cab floor. I can't see out the windsheild now, pull over and want to cry. I tell myself, it's a classic truck that just needs some lovin'. I have a clean rag, so I wipe the window at every stop light and make it to work.
7) The truck is a little to low for my taste, so I decide to replace the springs with some extras. As I jack up the truck I notice I have a three piece drive shaft! From the tranny, it's driveshaft, tranny yoke, drive shaft. Now this is where I lose it. There is no carrier bearing! There is a piece of folded over cardboard wedged in between the yoke (which is in the middle of two driveshafts) and the cab floor. Seems that when they lowered the truck the drive shaft wouldn't work with the carrier bearing so they removed the carrier bearing. OK cardboard! Give me a freakin break! I go to sit in the truck and ponder what my next move is and the button from the driverside door handle pops out!
I reassure myself that I have the parts just sitting in the garage, so it hasn't cost me anything other than time, but I'm pissed off at this guy. I' afraid to go to Pomona this weekend, because if I see this guy I'm gonna dot his eyes and get arrested.
Now it's gonna cost me more some good cash to get a driveshaft built.
With what I paid for this truck, OK maybe I'm a sucker.
But with the guy going on about how his truck is this classic collectors item, its turnkey ready to go/show, and yet he jerry-riggs everything WTF!
On the plus side I have a straight truck with no rust, yet. Although for what I know of this guy it's all probably bondoed.
There are other issues like a mile of wiring under the dash for the stereo and door poppers/locks. (none of which works.) Theres a 4 gauge wire running from the engine compartment to the rear of the cab? There was enough white powder battery to look like a winter wonderland under the battery tray. And as a final last straw
8)My wife says there is another puddle under the truck, this time it's power steering fluid on my new cement slab. The wife hugs me, pats my back and says it's going to be alright. The wife is cool that way.
Sorry but I just needed to rant, to some guys and gals who probably know to some extent the pain I feel.
Moral: never buy a "restored show" truck without doing a 100 point checkup on the truck. You'll be glad you did.
I feel better now, so I'm going to install the springs, measure for a new driveshaft and fix the power steering this weekend. Hopefully next week it will just be a bad memory, until I discover the next PO mistake.
I hope someone can learn from this and not make the same dumb mistake I did.
Wow is this what therapy is like?

For the last five years this type of thing has been continuing. Everytime I work on something the PO's sig is on everything.

[sir_talk_alot]

WOW. What a nightmare of a truck
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[JCD]

My nightmare vehicle was my first '68 Camaro.
I knew little about cars at the time, and on the okay of someone I thought was car savvy I bought this turd.
The car was a nightmare of bondo and patching, there wasn't one piece of the car that wasn't rusted out and filled.
The grill was pieced together with plastic scraps and glue, and the subframe was rotted on the driver side so badly, when I jacked up the car the front of the driver rear leaf spring hung down loose under the weight of the rear axle.
But the real prize was waiting for me when I began attacking the cars many wiring problems..
As I unwrapped the cheap electrical tape that held the wire bundles.. the PO had wired the entire car with red wire.
Dash, engine, headlights, body, and even the radio were all wired with the same gauge red wire....

J.

[treveiger]

Originally Posted by Dano69c10

This is from a thread I posted about 5 years ago;



For the last five years this type of thing has been continuing. Everytime I work on something the PO's sig is on everything.

I feel your pain, but I'm only on year 2 of my journey...
Posted via Mobile Device

[ScottG]

Not really a "nightmare" like previous posters have shared. Just a scary find. My neighbor was over checking out my "new" truck about 2 weeks ago, while I was trying to sort out some bad wiring. While we were talking, he noticed a rag shoved down into that cavity on the very front of the left fender. So he pulls it out and finds another,then a neatly folded towel on the bottom. So we unwrap this perfectly folded little towel and find a knife in it! Kinda freaked me out a little.

[no moa]

Originally Posted by stomper

110 volt house wall switch wired in under the dash for kill switch. '72 Nova.

lol, had a 77 camaro same thing.

[Regular Guy]

Hmmm, where to begin! I've not had anything as bad as Dano69c10, yet.

Many years ago I went on a road trip to check out a '71 that had a "frame off restoration". I call the guy, and he says, look, I'm only talking to serious buyers. I say, look, I'm driving 300 miles to look at your truck--that's pretty serious.

I get there and it LOOKS great. I open the door and there's trash all over--fast food bags, etc. No big deal I think, some people aren't much for housekeeping in their vehicles (like my wife). We go for a ride and the engine isn't running quite right--hesitates, not the best idle, etc. The guy says, yeah it needs a little work but you can handle that, eh?

Then I look underneath and there is a hole in the frame below the cab that you could shove a tennis ball through. I guess the "frame off restoration" didn't involve doing any frame work. The guys says, yeah, isn't that something! when I point it out to him. So I left.

Luckily I had a backup truck to look at on the way home; a '72 that turned out to be near perfect--good paint, frame, all mechanicals. So I paid a deposit, then drove back the next week 150 miles to get it. 50 miles down the road the transmission overheats! I called the guy and he is really cool--he's shocked because it was rebuilt and had a trans cooler on it. He offers to trailer it home for me, but I decline, and I made it the rest of the way. After fixing it, the truck turned out to be bullet proof--should have kept it!

My current '70 is ok--found a lot of nickle and dime stuff that I'm still working on. The worst was the fact that it used to be a manual trans, and was converted to auto--and the seller did not install a neutral safety switch, OR TELL ME ABOUT IT! It was just luck that it started in park on the test drives. The column was wore out too, it didn't take much to bump it into reverse from park. It was a shocker when I started it unknowingly in reverse. Good thing nothing was behind me, like humans...

So it never ends...

[flyngti]

I got a '67 as a donor for my '69. It had alloy wheels, a supposedly good 350/TH350 drivetrain and a a 4.11 posi rear according to the SPID. The fuel pump was bad but it ran for a few seconds from gas poured in the carb. I figured I'd take what I needed and could sell the rest.

350 turns out to be a 305
"running" 305 has a cracked block
305 smog heads are worthless
Radiator has holes in it
code on the rear end says it's not a 4.11 posi
trying to sell the wheels on CL, but no takers so far

In the end, I was only able to salvage a few parts. I was so pissed at the PO that I just had the rest hauled off because I couldn't bear to look at it.

[funkytechmonkey]

Mine was suposed to be an original 350 and turned out to be a 305... and the panels had chicken wire covered in bondo. Had to part that one out and start over.

[mr48chev]

Originally Posted by hjewell2

I dare say just about everybody at one time or another

Amen to that. Almost every regular on here knows that I am no fan of "patina" but I do tend to look for look for trucks with tired unmolested original paint when looking for projects rather than those that have had one or more repaint jobs.

My 71 was given to me by my aunt after my uncle had had it for about 25 years and it had sat for several years. I'm still finding things that he and his cronies did to it that make me shake my head.

He was really proud that he had built a wood tool box that fit behind the wheel well and he had bolted it into the box.
It sat right here.

The hole he drilled to mount it had one problem.

You can see daylight though it.
Because he had-

Drilled a hole clear through both panels to the outside where he stuck in a long bolt to hold the tool box in place. I think that over the years there were something like 56 extra holed drilled in the body of the truck to mount different things including one in the center of the roof for a cb antenna.
The truck has been on the road at least 20 years without a license plate light because they welded a piece of steel plate on the step bumper to be able to handle a horse trailer.


There is an amp gauge under the dash but it wasn't wired correctly and someone cut the wire to the lighter because they didn't want anyone smoking in the truck. After eight years of driving it I'm still finding things that he and his friends did to it.

[Redleg]

While i still love my truck, and it is still running strong, i know i paid way to much and didnt look it over correctly.

I blame myself, not the PO. I looked over the truck, but was so excited about the prospect of owning a classic again, i truly forgot some of the things i should have looked for.

I wasnt concerned about the rockers. I know they all need that. However i really should have paid attention to the inner cab by the windshield. I know there were no major holes when i got it, but now bumps and dumps have knocked out big chunks of rusted out spots.

Floor and cab corners are in great shape, however inner fender wells are rusted out and barely even connected on the front.

I knew the bed needed work in a couple of small places, but the more i dig, the more i find....

The PO put drop spindles on the front, but then just yanked out some leafs in the back when his wife pulled in the pocket book...

I was advised the 307 had been spruced up with new intake, carb, 305 heads and HEI. While all of that was true, i assumed they were 416 heads. I was wrong. THey were 70s model heads with even SMALLER valves.....

I know now why this truck has the theme it has. A flat black shop truck. Because its going to take quite a bit of work to return it to great shape....

Oh and the 307 leaks pretty good, but still runs like a champ...

So all in all, i love my truck, BUT....i truly believe i could have gotten a lot better deal for the money i paid.....

But, live in learn. I will clean this truck up. And wont make that same mistake again!

[patgizz]

Originally Posted by no moa

I got my 72 home and found out it was a long bed, not a shortbed. PO did a great job of hiding all the signs for me. But just can't blame him, I'm the retard for not paying close enough attention.

did he have a tape measure where the 8 foot mark had a 6 in sharpie over it?

i bought my 68 then got it home and realized the drivers rear cab mount is almost rusted through. but it was $600 and it runs/drives/stops and has about $600 worth of brand new tires so i couldnt go wrong.