new memeber of the owners club.... maybe

[blackdawn]

I have always liked the style of these trucks and have been looking for a good candidate to turn into my daily driver for the last couple months. so, i drove 250 miles up from where i live in California to the bay area and bought a 1969 stepside truck. it was advertised on craigslist for $3500, it had a 350, and a 700r4 in it and it was primered and claimed to have a good straight body good straight frame, and no major rust. so i got up at 6:30 in the morning and proceeded to drive for 4 and a half hours, then spent another 2 hours trying to track down a trailer from u haul (i was supposed to borrow a buddies but the wiring was not working when i went to pick it up the night before). so before i rant on too much i found that the po had lied about a lot of stuff, some i caught while purchasing the truck and some i found out after that would have been a deal breaker.

so i'm going to list off the good and bad's of the truck and i'm curious to see if i just completely got a bad deal or if ill make it out ok, and if i should just ditch the truck now and get a different one or not.

frame -
good- looks like it was painted about 10 years ago, so little bits of surface rust here and there.
bad- springs where cut in the front and back, too low and badly done, shocks where some junk thrown on, has the wrong rear bumper mounts, looks like the truck hit something head on, the 2 tabs where the bumper mounts to where bent in and the front horns look bent to the left. where the horns meet the first cross brace its about 75 degrees on onside and 105 on the other where it should be 90 and 90. in the back its only off by about 5 degrees in the same manner. (this was hidden from me by a half mounted straight bumper and cut front springs that i already knew about)

front fenders -
good - they looks in decent shape, and dont have too much bondo as far as i can tell
bad - they shaved the front markers off of both sides, one of the inner fenders is cut to allow everything to fit still with the tweaked frame.

bed -
good- i think the fenders are salvageable, one is a little heavy on bondo, and the steps look in alright condition
bad- the bed was hit, the sheetmetal sides both ripped at the front and they attempted to bondo it straight, the wood/ innards are missing, the step supports are missing, the tail gate is dented and has a weird hole cut into it.

bumpers -
good- the back bumper is a chrome one with the license plate holder in good condition
bad- the front is a while one from the wrong year and basically scrap metal

hood -
good- looks in decent shape with out too much bondo from what i can tell
bad - looks like a bunch of small dents in it

cab - (probably the one semi saving grace of the truck)
good- no rust minus one spot from what i can tell, windows are all good rockers etc, dash has no holes, its in good condition, cluster looks good bar 2 of the gauges, the steering column looks good and is solid, the tank looks good, glovebox is good, glass is good.
bad- there is one tiny rust hole dead center of the drivers side floor, still sounds strong, looks like they mounted 5 different kinds of seats, so there are a bunch of random holes, they converted to a column auto from a stick, the seat is a throw away, no carpeting, the headliner was horridly glued in, ignition is dangling out the bottom of the dash.

engine -
good - once it was started, it sounded good, and felt powerful, was able to drive around to load and unload (couldn't drive it on the street due to reg/springs)
bad- starter is done, can hardly get it going, carb needs to be adjusted and cleaned out, and someone put the valve covers and hose to the one on backwards (doesn't effect much but makes me wonder what else they messed up)

tranny-
good- i tried to make it slip by putting it in gear and mashing the breaks and gas and it sounded good both forward and reverse
bad- haven't been able to test at speed/go through the gears

doors-
good- has glass and functional doorhandles?
bad- they put bondo on too thick so it cracked and is now rusting under it, they shaved the mirrors, and i didnt catch this but the bottoms are starting the rot out

brakes-
good- has disc brakes in front nice big rear drums in back
bad- the master cylnder is leaking from the seal, havent inspected the breaks themselves yet, but they do function

so all in all if i had known everything that was bad i would have never bought it even after the 500 mile round trip and horrible gas prices. its too late now though i have it. i will say it is very hard to find any short bed trucks on the central coast in cali, so i may not be in too bad of shape money wise. so, what do you guys think, try and sell it and recoupe some of my money, or just dive in and know that from the frame up its new/ or good condition used, and done right?

[RenoKeene]

Welcome aboard from Central Florida. Sounds like you are in pretty deep already, also sounds like you know a thing or two about this stuff. Basically this all comes down to what did you intend to do with this truck...daily driver?, Rat Rod, Show Pony? If it was mine I would make a list of what it will take to make it road worthy and what will that cost. Do you have money left to play with? Do you have the tools and skills to do alot of the work yourself? What does your gut tell you about this truck....
Whatever you decide you are in good company here with the rest of us truck freaks.
I would start working on it if it were mine.
Now, how about some pictures.....

[blackdawn]

well my intentions for this truck where to make a daily driver out of it that i could use to tow with maybe once a month at most (summer vacations, car haulers stuff like that). originally i wanted to put a 327 together and pair it up with a 700r4 to get up there in gas mileage while not towing. i also intended for this truck to be something i could work on, so i was avoiding fuel injection, computers etc. i dont need a show truck, so i could really care less how clean my engine compartment is, but i want a nice looker. i have spent 3400 on the truck (not including my travel costs) and i have about a 10k budget (i honestly expected anything i did to get to around 12k when i'm completely done with it).

now for a little background on me, i have grown up with a very do it yourself out of the box make stuff the way i want kinda way, so i am not scared of working on this by any means, and i live with my brother who has restored an 1970 mustang mach 1, and have many race/ engine building/ machine shop buddies. so im pretty sure i can handle most of the basic work myself. what concerns me is what is gonna end up costing me to get the frame straightened out then get the cab blasted to see if it actually is in good shape, and then finding good replacement parts for nearly everything else. going into this i was figuring on rebuilding the engine into a 327 and rebuilding the 700r4 into an indestructible tranny, but with everything else going on and paint i don't think ill be able to accomplish that now.

oh and as for pics i dont have any uploaded yet, but this should hopefully tide you guys over till i get some, this is what i purchased: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/2865750973.html

[RenoKeene]

I think you'll be just fine, alot of the folks in here started with a lot less than what you have (mainly rust) and built good trucks. You are no novice and you have some build money, and maybe most importantly you have friends and family that can help so all things considered you arn't in bad shape. As far as the frame goes if it isn't bent BETWEEN THE AXLES then it's fixable.
And don't forget....you've got us too. There are a bunch of good people on this board that will help anyway they can, and a lot of them are in Cali.

[blackdawn]

ok, well i don't feel as bad now, i've been kicking myself ever since i discovered what i had missed before buying it. I do love this form, i have been browsing and looking at other builds for ideas, looks like im definitely in for a complete frame off resto though. Thanks for your encouragement

[blackdawn]

btw as far as the frame goes, i think just the front horns are actually bent, maybe to the motor mounts, then one of the frame rails was pushed back a little farther than the other, which is causing a lot of stuff not to line up hole wise, not by much though. i just made a call to a local shop with a frame rack, they want 85 an hour to bend it back and gave a ball park guess of about 8 hours to do it.

[blackdawn]

there are some more pics in the album too