new to site...and new to these trucks. '70 F100 SWB

[need2xlr8]

Hey guys. I just bought a '70 at Mecum in Kansas City over the weekend. The story from the seller (who is a dealer, so I take it with a grain of salt) is that he bought it from the 2nd owner and it was originally a Tennessee truck (stored in a barn, bla bla). It has original paint (buffed and polished) and interior, Ridler 18" wheels, lowered 2.5" (I don't know how yet, hopefully not hacked up). It is a 302 with a column shifted 3 speed. The only rust I saw on close inspection is in the driver side floor where the pan meets the firewall, tail gate (pretty bad on the inner panel), passenger fender 1/4" hole, and driver rear bed corner 1/2" hole.

Since it has been unmolested, aside from wheels and lowering, I do not plan on refinishing the body. It is a manually column shifted 3 speed with no pwr steering/brakes though, so any suggestions on making it safer and more fun to drive would be appreciated. Also, the dash pad and arm rests are trashed, so suggestions there would be great. (edit-I've been reading the interior forum on this, found good info there).

BTW, I'm 47, with reasonably good mechanical skills and tools. I've had many older and newer vehicles, and am currently restoring a '64 Chevy Biscayne 2 door. So I'd be confident in doing almost anything on the truck, aside from body work.

I will be reading a lot here in the next week. I didn't plan on buying any vehicles there, and therefore haven't done much research on these trucks yet, but I really liked it and couldn't pass it up.

Thanks guys
Shaun

2016-03-12 11.30.37small.jpg

2016-03-11 17.38.43small.jpg

2016-03-12 11.30.18small.jpg

[1970FordTK]

Welcome from North Carolina, hope you have fun with it.

[EDVSU]

Sweet ride!
Awesome condition and you can't go wrong with the 70' model. My personal favorite of the bunch.
from Texas.

[jimmy828]

from Asheville,NC. Nice find!

[lennyp]

from Massachusetts.

[need2xlr8]

Thanks for the welcomes everyone.
It was delivered to town tonight and I drive it about 10 miles home. Runs pretty poorly, but made it nonetheless. It misses real bad, the belt is loose and worn, and screams, and the dash lights and temp gauge no worky.
Pretty typical for an auction flip. It has a Frankenstein plug wire set, so I'll pull and replace all of the ignition parts and see if that fixes the miss. Hopefully it's not a valve issue.

As a fun aside...I was poking around behind the seat, and found that a previous owner thought that beside the gas tank was a perfect place to Carry his road flares.

[Mancar1]

Welcome aboard from Gerber, Ca.

[popeyes71]

from California! Like any new ride, there are always things to do to them, enjoy your new toy!

[AZf100]

From Phoenix AZ, great looking truck, Sounds like you have some Maintenance ahead of you.

[71StylesideF100]

Nice lookin' truck, congrats.

One of these days I'm going to track down a chrome rear bumper.

[Wilfred of Ivanhoe]

Cool story, and welcome! keep us updated please. Very cool!

[tnab1970]

from Texas

[need2xlr8]

In the past week I have learned an awful lot on this site, Thanks guys.

And after poking around on the truck, I have learned a lot about it. Some good (the originality), some bad (the front suspension).

After finding that one spark plug was loose, and one was inoperable from the PO missing the hole the first time and getting so much oily, dirty crud on the tip it wouldn't fire, I cleaned all plugs, put them back in and changed the wires out. I thought 'That's it!" and I was hopeful it would run great...it did not. Concerned I had a bad cylinder, I ran a compression test. Thankfully that was good, and all holes were within a few lbs of each other. Hmm...

I did find the coolant temp sender wire was off, and after putting a new sender in for good measure, that works now. "Thank god something I did fixed something!"

I wanted to check the timing, and was a little concerned I had a bad distributor, so I called my brother in law to get my timing light I loaned to him...He tells me he can't find it... No "I'll buy you a new one" or "I'll keep looking", just "I don't have it anymore"... (In his defense, it was probably 5 years ago when he borrowed it).

Anyway, I started looking at the old, very old, coil. I got a replacement, and discovered some sketchy connections at the coil too. I replaced the coil and connectors. Not very optimistic this time, I fired it up. To my surprise, NO MORE MISS! I drove it about 10 miles, and although the carb stumbles, and the timing is probably off, the motor seems in good running condition.

I ordered a timing light from Amazon, and to my amazement, the local NAPA had a carb rebuild kit. So up next...the smell of gas in the garage, and lots of tiny springs, valves and gaskets on my bench.

Thanks again

[Madman]

Colorado!