Whats the scariest car/truck youve bought?

[Desert Rat]

As in Mickey Moused. Mine is a 72 GMC i bought from the original owner with original paperwork.I bought it for $50 i wanted the rearend and disc brakes,it was obviously a pile,i was scared to drive it home,this old guy drove it everyday i saw him every morning going through the dumpsters in the alley collecting junk and cans.Anyhow i pretty much struck a deal before inspecting it up close i figured $50 and it drives,he didnt know what motor,trans etc we had a severe communication problem(well i did or he did) i speak english,and he knew how to shake his head yes and he knew what dollar meant.i arranged to have my wife drop me off and follow me home after work,i understood water leaks,i figured radiator dribbled(WRONG)and need tire(so i brought 4)i got title gave him $50 didnt bother to notarize figured it would be gone by Saturday.well i filled up radiator and it leaked from about 10 spots where the bondo wasnt sealing the holes in the radiator,i thought F it,im only going a mile,its only a 6cyl.well i couldnt start it,had to flip certain toggle switches and the push button.well it ran(i had to bring a battery)i took off,it jerked,clunked the shifter handle came out of the tranny(4spd)and iu couldnt get it back in,thank god i was in granny.so needless to say i went 3 mph home,it was starting to get very very hot-keep in mind no water and about 110 degrees out,one front brake dragging,i had to stop with emergency brake(it stuck)i was fighting to get it home,on my street it got too hot and just died,hop out hook tow chain and pull into back yard and ignore it until Saturday morning.about 8 am i get on my coveralls,gather my tool cart with all the 1/2" drive tools,breaker bar,sawzall,BFH,couple cans of WD40,i knew no body part would be salvaged,the hood junk had a chain going through it to lock hood,fenders were bent,grille was well it was a GMC and it looked like a 72 Chevy grille,the box look like a tractor dumped 20 tons of rock from 50 ft above.the cab was tore at the floor ripped from the body bolts how i dont know,i lied there was one beautiful passanger side door-which i saved.but it had no regulator or glass.i pulled the nose to prepare for the front crossmember to be removed,nose fell off,went to unbolt motor well uhhhh easy.one side was sitting on a wood block with a bolt going down to secure it,other side had a chain bolted to motor mount and wrapped around frame,tranny no mount,couple zaps with sawzall motor gone.disc brakes which i wasa going to save,rotors and pads,lets just say i know why it was dragging the pad was gone and down to the metal and basically welded it self to the rotor,other side no better.my conclusion nothing was even good for a core along with a split a arm,so i left it all be cheaper to spend $75 at buddys junkyard to have him cut off a 73 frame at the firewall.i thought well rearend worth $50(WRONG)to pull motor and trans i used sawzall to cut driveline,well after unbolting the ubolts and upon yanking rearend,it was right infront of me,WTF cheap ass,didnt bother to buy a 7.99 ujoint instead they welded the capless ujoint to the rearend yoke,HOLY FFFFFF i was pissed,i tried to chisel and everything i figured worst ill do is screw up yoke,i can put anbother one on.i couldnt get that thing off for the life of me.spent $25 in welding rod and could have spent less time and money buying a ujoint!!!!oh i was mad.you know what i got to keep out of that $50 a radio delete and a door.still not bad sold delete for $10 and got a rust free door for $40,but i didnt even want a 72 door.i need pre '72's oh well.now first thing i do is go,that and that will make my cash backmand ill get that and that for free.What kind of Mickey Moused stuff have you been lucky enough to buy?

[Long Knight]

In college I inhareted a '77 Pinto my brother bought for a 6 pack of beer and $1. No kidding. Both sets of leaf springs in the rear were broken in at least two different places and the clutch was bad because the girl that drove it previously thought you had to have the clutch pushed in at least half way at all times. Anyway, my bro drove it around for a few years and he just gave it to me when I got into college. I replace the rear springs (whitch coincidently are the same as the Mustang), replaced the U-joints, and gave it a new pait job.

Me and my beer buds painted reverse flames on the "ho", as my friends called it. They were nice too, back half was fire engine red and faded into orange and eventually yellow. Anyway, I would be sitting in my classes and hear people talking about that Pinto with the reversed flames on it. "It looks like it's on fire!" OK, so we might have had a little too much to dring the night we decided to paint it, but it turned out to be a ledgend. Everyone knew the Flaming Pinto. Anyway, redemption came with my '71 C-20 and my flaming Pinto days were over (even though I could dump the clutch and leave 15' of black nasty behind me!) Thankfully, I didn't loose any money on the deal. I sold it for...you got it, 6 pack of beer and a dollar. Now a 50 year old med tech drives it to work at the hospital every day!

[Palf70Step]

Most of what I had in High school fell into this category. Several stick out....1962 Biscayne...paid $5 for it. Had to weld alot to make it look like it was PA road legal. Had a lot of fun with ti...but in 6 months we pout in 5 motors. I was finally asked ohh so kindly to remove it from the road when the rear bumper and part of the rear frame fell off the car in front of a PA state trooper when I was going across a railroad track..

let's see front end fell out of my 61 rambler...paid $30 for 4 of them....

You get the idea of what I drove back then. Ahhh youth.. Nevr thought about being destructable....

[Long Knight]

I almost forgot about the DJ-5 mail jeep I drove during high school. Man, now that was a piece of crap. I would be driving down the highway and the freakin door would just fly back and I would almost get sucked out. The seat didn't line up with the steering wheel, and the back door would fly open sometimes and my stuff would fly out the back.

[THOR 50]

Baught a '75 Cadillac for the motor that smelled like like cat piss and had an exhaust leak. Stopped at the gas station to put some gas in it and more ran out than stayed. (big hole in the side of the tank) opened the hood to check the radiator for the 50 mile drive home and noticed that the upper control arm was rubbing against the drivers side exhaust manifold(cause of the exhaust leak)
Made it home without incident even though there was 6 inches of play in the steering.

[67cst]

i havent had anything too scary but i did buy a 72 fj40 crusier last summer, it had drums all the way around, there were 2 wheel cylinders per wheel so 8 total...anyways 7 of the 8 were shot and the brakes didnt work that good at all...about 4 times i got brake fade real bad, well the 4th time it happened was going to be the last, i was coming down a big long hill in my town with a friend, nearing the bottom i applyed the brake to stop, then pedal was right on the floor and i wasnt even beginning to slow down. lucky for me it was a 4 way intersection so i ran the stop sign and no cars were around, then went through the intersection and up the road, lucky for me it was steep, kinda like a run away lane, well i came to a complete stop, put it in gear and shut it off. oh and the e brake wasnt hooked up either....got er home and decided to do the brakes, 600 bucks later...yes 600 and thatsa ll parts...those fukers are expensive...so i got the brakes working perfect and about 2 months later i threw a rod, go figure eh, i think it was the chevy gods telling me to get another chevy. 3 out of the 5 vehicles ive owned are chevs...

[XXL]

'72 Camaro RS w/307, TH350, and 2.41 rearend gears (I could drive down the highway in low gear). Previous owner had done rear fender flares-- method was to rivet steel flashing to factory fender lip, thus creating a horizontal shelf approx 4" wide that followed the wheel opening. Next was to pile on 7.2 metric tons of body filler to get that perfect fender flare shape. Scary part is that it actually had an excellent finish (Note: I did not say that the flares looked good... just that the finish was excellent). I didn't even know they were made from filler until one cracked. Rear had air shocks-- one Monroe (external bag type) and another xxx brand that was internal bag type... so they required different pressures to achieve the same ride height. It had 15x10 Cragar S/S on the rear and Cragar skinnies up front. The wheels were flawless and when I went to get rid of the car, I sold the wheels for $150, and crushed the car for $20. I used to change a friend's dad's oil in his earth mover-- you know, you put the oil in by the 5 gallon bucket. Well, his dad always let me have a 5 gallon bucket of oil as part of my payment. So I carried the bucket in the trunk so it was easy to "refuel" the 307's intense desire to burn oil. It was probably a funny sight with me topping off the engine with a 5 gallon bucket.

Oh... and I bought it for $1 (and had to pay $5 tax since TX was 5% of sale at the time and the minimum sale was $100... even though I have a $1 bill of sale).

It was a superb second car and I beat it like a stepchild.

I had to think about the answer to this post as I've owned several that could easily have been written up here

Kenneth

[Blue Beard]

70 el camino.......

bought it from a local dealer................

drove it for awhile, then dicided to change hoses and filters..............

when I pulled the air cleaner.............

every screw in the top of the carb was threaded about 1/2 way out..........

was lucky it didn't ignite...........

['72 Shorty]

I'm still young and haven't owned too many vehicles, but here's my POS Story:

'75 IH Scout, I think I bought it for $100, and it didn't look too bad at the time, but I didn't drive it far before I bought it. The rear end was missing 5 teeth off the ring gear and 3 off the pinion, so it was disconnected and the driveline was stuffed under the back seat, I was always going to fix this but never got around to it. Just drove on the front end. 3 brakes where seized( L front was the only one that worked). The power steering pump was held on with a hose clamp and a couple zip ties, the crank pully spun in an odd eccentric that would throw every belt at anything over 55MPH. Every once in a while the ignition wouldn't work in Start, so I always kept a couple screwdrivers in the glove box. The scariest part of all on that truck, was the steering. the splines on the steering box where almost completely stripped and every once in a while you would try to turn around a corner and the wheel would just spin. A couple good whacks on the wheel and it would drive the shaft back onto the box and she would make the corner, If you weren't already in the ditch.

I daily drove that thing all the way through high school while I was putting the '72 together.

[dmnall]

my first car was the world's biggest POS, hell even my 74 C10 Parts truck was better.. 81 VW Rabbit P/U Diesel.. Damn thing pulled to the left, max speed was 60 w/ wind pushing it, went through 5 sets of Fuel Inejector Lines, went through 3 cams, Brakes Sucked.. Trust me what turned out to be $ 400 first truck/car, turned out to be one of the most expensive things to own besides restoring my 68 that is.. Considering there was one junk yard that knew my dad and I by name because of all the parts both of us bought from him... Damn I should have traded that thing off for the S10 the owner of the junkyard had... Oh Well Live and Learn... It just goes to show that sometimes when they are listed as Great Running but w/ low price like under $ 500 - 1500 Avoid... Especially if it is a VW Diesel...

[Lippyp]

Definitely a 78 1.6L Vauxhall Cavalier (looks like an Opel Manta for you American people!) It was white with a red interior including a huge red plastic dashboard (actually factory colour scheme) It had so many holes in the front fenders that I came out one day and found someone had stuffed a couple of empty beer cans in one. I rivetted some scrap aluminium (from the bottom of an old pram) over the worst and sprayed some white primer over them, kinda looked armour plated.

It had two huge speakers in the front doors which the previous owner being a woodwork teacher had mounted on two circles of chipboard they were so heavy the used to fall out with regular monotony when you opened the doors and swing on the cables. The drivers window mechanism died so I had two cables coming out of the top of the door tied to the handle the only options were open or shut!. The heater controls were all shot and one particularly cold spell I actually drove in a sleeping bag with the bottom end unzipped. oh and it used to die every time you went through a puddle which was quite often, crappy wet electrics!

I loved that car, it was my second car ever (first was a very rusty 1969 Triumph spitfire that barely made it of my parents driveway) Scrapped it in the end when it failed its inspection and it got replaced by an Alfa Romeo.

[Project1970]

Originally posted by Lippyp
Definitely a 78 1.6L Vauxhall Cavalier (looks like an Opel Manta for you American people!)

Which isn't going to help most people here.

[Dean]

The 84 Chevette Diesel I bought new. So fast it was scary...lol The rearend actually went out under warranty but good old GM wouldn't put another ratio in for me. I bolted in a 3.70 so it would at least get out of its own way.

My S10 Blazer was pretty scary too with the smoke coming out of the digital dash...lol That vehicle was the end of me buying American cars to drive to work.

There was that one VW Beetle I bought for parts. It was so rusty that the seats were held in with boards across the outer pan rails. I drove it home and felt like a Flintstone mobile. Guy was still driving it until the police saw the door fly open going around a corner. The police made him stop driving it...lol

[Lippyp]

Sorry guys, Vauxhall is part of GM and as a brand is sold pretty much only in the UK, elsewhere the same cars are badged as Opels, the MK1 Cavalier was also an Opel Ascona and the sportier Coupe the Opel Manta. This is what they looked like, kinda average salesmans/family car.

[1969 GMC]

Well...I didn't exactly buy it...but my dad did, and I am naturally his gopher, so it counts.lol anyways, it was a 1974 International 3/4 ton stake truck. We bought he truck "ran great" from the p/o who had bought it from the ODOT, I believe. It was originally white, then blue (applied with a roller), then brown with a white top. They didn't bother to sand the other paint off, they just kept painting over it. Well, it was actually kinda green, it had bad moss coverage. It had been sitting for 2+ years under a tree. It had one 12 gallon tank (yes, stock), and it was a thirsty truck. It had a 4 speed that wouldn't stay in 2nd (and it had a granny, so 2nd was used frequently). Also, in the first couple of weeks of us owning it, I think about 20 or so treefrogs were found hiding all over the thing. Under the hood, in the glovebox, inside seat, etc. And these were damn big tree frogs too, little smaller than a computer mouse. My dad taught me stick shift on this truck, I'll always remember that, but it went down the crapper. Engine seized, we rebuilt, seized again, and then my very angry dad sold it for almost nothing.

[O'l Buck]

Bought it on a consignment sale for $125 when I was in high school. I didn't even bother to take a close look at it. They started it, it didn't smoke, it sounded like it was hitting on all 8 so I bought it. It was a shortbox stepside, the 350 that was supposed to be in it turned out to be a 327. It originally had a 6 cylinder. Got it home, points had burned up, put new points in, burned up on the way to school. New points in shop class, burned up on the way home. Did some comparing with dad's 67, the coil was wired backwards.

They had painted this truck silver with a shop broom (many many brush streaks). The motor mounts were steel, and the engine was bolted to the steel, but the steel was welded to the frame, the exhaust pipes (straights dumping under the cab) were brazed to the manifolds. Heater box was hanging by a thread and the body had about 8 gallons of bodo in it. I sanded it down and got some ford blue tractor paint, painted most of the body blue and the top of the cab and bumpers white with a spray can.

I drove it all summer hauling my horse to go roping and took it fishing. Then I sold it to a guy for $425. Funny though, I kinda miss that truck.........solid black in all 4 gears.......fun to drive.

[Canadian694x4]

some great stories...

[sgtjed]

my junker story is a 73 nova ss with the rare factory cloth sunroof.

i bought the car for 50 bucks back in the mid 80's,before it was rare, and was going to fix it and drive it.
well the thing smoked real bad and barley ran. so i pulled the motor,wich was held in by cable strapped to the block and frame.
as i was jacking up the rear of the car the rear fell out due to major amounts of rust and the floor boards were completly gone under the carpet.
well i had no choice in junking the car,i never had a chance to drive it either. well i kept the 350 and turbo 350 for my 64 chevelle ss that i had at the time also. that car was a peice in and of it self but being a 64 ss i forgave it and did a complete build on it just to sell, wish i still had it.

[72shadetree]

got a 79 camaro awile back just to play with when i tore down my truck wasnt worried if it blew are not cause i had a fresh 350 in the trk drove it home hardly no brakes 305 starts acting up the next day got to checking and had burn 3 pistons no problem so we pulled and worked all day and have the night{nothing went right}go it done fired it up doulble checked everything and it would barley move trans was out of it with the weak 305 it wouldnt slip but it did with the 350.got so mad i forgot about taking wife out it was our anniversary jerked the 350 back out and sold it on the spot then come home to one really pissed off wife



olso had a 66 vw bug with one of those fiberglass truck bed kits on it crager ss it was sharp outside.blowed motor so i drove my dads 53 trk to the family reuion didnt know he was allready there got busted doing a burnout he took his trk away from me so i get back home pull the hot motor out of the 68 bug i just totaled got it running and it started raining wipers quit tye a string to the wipers for a temp fix the next day i hit a bump the left door flys open and i feel like i just dropped or something got to checking and alot of the floor board had fell out and dropped the seats 3 inches.sold it now it sets in a junkyard only thing gone is the motor.when i sold it was 15 tears ago and ive looked at it several times latly thinking about getting it back and find a goo body to put the bed kit on

[jays68yak]

I dont know about scarist but it was a pos. Last year I found a 64 Ford Flat bed truck for $150. Had been sitting for awhile, didnt know if it would start. Go there with a battery, hook it up pour some gas down the carb and it started right up. drove it on teh trailer, bearly fit. It was such a fun drive home. Couldnt go over 50mph cuz the bed of the truck was 8x12 its self. The bed of the trailer is only 16 or so feet. The back of the trailer hung over about 3 feet. Anyways, I bought a rad cap for it, and put an air cleaner on it that I had in the garage. Sold the truck for $500. Would have been great to drive the thing around town it was soo funny.


Heres a pic:

[JHickson6]

My daily driver, the 3-0-Duece, it's a beast!! ask some of the other Winnipeg members!

[Randy70C-10]

How about the scariest car I've ever built? BTW, It's for sale! Any takers??

[oldsub86]

My current 68 Chevy pickup was about the worst I have had. I bought it on a tender and therefore couldn't drive it before hand. When I won the bid I picked it up and took it for a quick ride. It was awful - could hardly keep it in my lane. Put 4 new tires on it and it settled down and drove quite nice. Easy fix.

[Southpa]

I wouldn't say this was the scariest ride I ever bought, but as far as what needed to be done to get it running, I'll have to admit it was a daunting task.

It was in 1983, I just wrecked my Pinto wagon (another story) and some guy offered me a 65' Impala. He claimed it was an SS, but I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground when it came to cars back then. No power steering and it had one of those little wooden steering wheels. The original 283 got blowed up so the guy put an old truck motor in it that had over 100,000 miles.
Someone installed a console shift, never did like them. It had absolutely no exhaust (manifolds on down), so I measured out and installed a dual exhaust from a ditch in the middle of winter with some used headers. All the wiring under the dash was little pieces of 4" wire all taped together, couldn't figure any of it out. The trans linkage was FUBAR and couldn't shift it into DRIVE, but got 1st and 2nd gear ok. I took it for a drive on the hwy after all that and it died. Half the plug wires got fried on the headers. Had to walk back and get a buddy to tow me back home.

I finally got rid of it when a neighbor backed his truck into the back right corner. At least I knew enough about bondo back then as there was a BIG pile of the stuff on the ground under the hit area. I guess if I knew what I know now I might not have even bothered with the car or might have gotten it running alot easier. $300 for the car and another $300 for the exhaust, so it wasn't too much of a burn. At least I got my $300 back when I sold it.

[yellowgmc]

my gmc. the 2nd day i had it i took it out on the highway and hit 85mph in it. now i look at it and am surprised i didn't kill myself. lets see, no lines to the back brakes, spark plug wires rubbing on the steering colum, and many many others. ond the one i found today; a big hole rusted in my driver side upper control arm! oh and last week i pulled the seat belt out with my bare hands. held in with spray in foam.