I own my truck because my father is a yard sale ******!!!
One weekend about 1 ½ years ago, my father called me and said he had just been yard sale-ing. At one particular yard sale he purchased a 9.9 horsepower Mercury outboard to strap on our boat to make it legal for the little lakes around here, one of which is where he kept his pontoon. At any rate, there was a sign on a post that read “Three Ford F series trucks for sale, $2000.00 for all three” which peaked his interest enough that he had to tell me about it! I may never forgive him for making that call!!! J
So, I go check these trucks out, two are 6.9’s the other is a 1980 F-100 with a 460 stuffed in it. As soon as I saw the trucks, I knew who the previous owner was, a long time friend of mine who I hadn’t heard from in quite sometime, but had heard he was diagnosed with brain cancer. I went and talked to him and found out he was selling the trucks to help cover medical expenses, and got the lowdown on the trucks. One truck, the main part of which now makes up the “Mule” as my friends like to call it, was in pretty good shape but had just had a water pump put on it and now would not run. Of course the guru’s quickly told me about the water pump bolts etc. and that they probably had ruined the injector pump, as I have learned in most cases, the guru’s were correct, but I bought the trucks anyways, paid a friend with a wrecker $150 to haul all three to my house. The delivery should have told me to get an exorcist, or change my mind about this purchase, but I needed a truck and wanted to try a diesel – boy, should I have thought more about this purchase! J
The friend with the wrecker, hauled the 1987 F250 without incident, except for the rear bumper brackets letting loose and the bumper ending up in the bed of the truck. I should have listened to Mr. Murphy, as he was telling me to beware, but I didn’t. The next to be hauled was the F350. My friend got it hooked up without incident, but that was about the only thing that went without incident! They towed the truck about ½ mile and the front brakes locked up (was hooked to the rear). So, my acquaintance (told me at this point he didn’t want to be considered a friend any longer! J) switched the hook and headed on home. He had a 1989 F350 wrecker with a 6.9 transplant, which become important later! The next thing to happen was the rear end went out of the wrecker, I guess, like my jack-stands, it did not care for the weight of the 6.9 in the front of that F350! Since it was 4 wheel drive, he pulled the rear axles out and ran it ALMOST the rest of the way on the front axles. I should mention at this point that I live on a hill, I pretty steep hill J and he couldn’t make it the last 1/8 mile to the top which is less than ¼ mile from my home, so I go get my tractor. I swear I was only gone for a minute, but when I returned, my acquaintance informed me he no longer wanted to be my acquaintance either. His truck, while idling awaiting my return “just died” to hear him explain it. After 2 or 3 hours of diagnosis, we determined the IP had died, so we remove the one from my F350, put it on, bleed it out and we are back in business. We get my tractor hooked up and get ready to crest the hill when my tractor dies! Here we sit, middle of the road, pretty much tractor over the hill, wrecker on top, and the newly purchase F350 on the other side, we couldn’t go anywhere!!! Have you ever seen two grown men, sitting in the middle of a township road, crying? It is an ugly site. Eventually, we get my tractor fired as the 12 volt conversion killed the 6 volt points, luckily, I had a spare set. We get the F350 home and call it a day, we were too afraid to go after the 3<SUP>rd</SUP> devil spawn!
A week or so goes by, my now distant acquaintance never calls, I think he should have changed his number! J I give him a ring and he finally agrees that he will go get the third and final truck. This time, he brings his F250 and lowboy and we drive the 10 miles to where the third and final truck is parked. We back the lowboy in and see that the F100 no longer has wheels or tires!!! Off we go back to my house where I get a set I had from another Ford truck, a 1966 F150. Of course those of you who are Ford fans probably know the next problem…F100 and F150 rims are not interchangeable and my once close friend not only disowns me, but threatens my heritage and my life if I ever call him again. After about 2 hours of running around in his F250 with a 460 that gets about 8 MPG, we find a set of rims that will work to get this thing home. We load it with a winch as none of these trucks run and head home. On the way, we hit something that looks like a board; well actually it was a board, one with nails in it that takes out the front passenger tire on his truck and both right side tires on the tandem axle trailer. I just had to say it, "look on the good side, we still have a good rear tire on your truck". We are still 6 miles from home and at this point, I fear for my life as my buddy is a funny shade of red. I have to walk about two miles to the top of the next hill (actually ran most of it as I was being chased but he smokes and had to stop and light up a couple of times) and called for help. Got the tires off, hauled to a repair shop and fixed, we are now going on 8 hours to haul one truck, 10 miles, my buddy is furious, but we finally make it home where I make it up to him by grilling some nice steaks and a few cold ones. I still don’t hear from him much though…not sure why!
After getting the trucks home, I changed the water pump on the 87 and tried to get it running using parts from the 85 F350 that had been removed for the water pump change on the 87 that took out the IP. The mechanic removed them and took them as he never received payment as my friend who owned the trucks died, two short weeks after being diagnosed. I have been motivated to work on this truck many times for no known reason, as I mentioned, my buddy still refers to them all as devil spawn and refuses to ride in my 87, the only truck that survived the transplant and parting out procedure, but I know that even though it needed a ton of work, my deceased buddy gets a kick out of me tinkering with the old jewel. As aggravated as I get at it sometimes, it is still a good truck that after much TLC hasn’t let me down. I can’t seem to find anything it can’t pull and it feels great to make things for it such as the exhaust system that I just never took the time to do before. Hopefully a turbo and such will be future additions, but for now, I often hear my passed friend’s laughter when I ride down the road. I wish he knew of Oil Burners and the great bunch of people here that would have helped him fix things right so I didn’t have too! J Hopefully Garry has found comfort where he now resides…and he still gets a laugh out of my truck frustrations.