Welcome to the latest episode of Wheeler Dealers GRM, where one of the forum members buys a sick motor, mops her back into shape, and sells her on for a profit. In this week's episode regular contributor Javelin finds a classic piece of Americana!
This is "Hank Hill". Hank is a 1969 Ford F-100, which is reason enough to fix up, but Hank has a really cool feature, as he's been propane-powered since brand new! (Note no gas holes anywhere) This truck was owned by SWMBO's boss's husband, meaning we got major brownie points for buying it off of him at the company Christmas party, because she hated looking at it! It's a factory 360 FE big-block with a 4-speed manual on the floor (granny low 1st), a limited slip differential, and the aforementioned propane power. Manual drum brakes reside at all 4 corners, but it also features power steering and electric wipers. I shelled out $800 smackers for it and drove it home.
I started driving it around every day because it seemed to run and drive better the more miles it got on it, and I couldn't find much of anything wrong with it! I took through a DIY car wash for the pressure-washer sprayer and scrubbed the crud off of it.
A stop at the farm and feed store netted me $1.78 a gallon fully road-taxed propane for the tank. It's an 80-gallon unit, so I only put about half in it.
The ride and handling were both atrocious, and the braking subpar, and I had a feeling it had to do with the horrible rake on the thing. Turns out the front tires were an inch too small and the backs were 2 inches too large, and the wheels weren't doing the looks any favors.
I located a set of the OE steel wheels and rattle-canned them Wimbledon White to match the bumpers.
I had a set of matching half-tread BFG's mounted up and WOW! What a difference both visually and with the ride. It was actually comfortable to drive now and stopped a lot better, plus it didn't crash over bumps anymore. The look was almost perfect, too. I just had to do something about the rust stains...
There we go, now she was ready to sell! The old Freiburger trick (from CC and Roadkill, he wrote an article like 20 years ago on it, basically baking soda and a kitchen sponge) got the rust streaks off while preserving the patina.
That complete, I listed her up for sale.
Engine needed nothing but a new wing nut.
Interior just needed all the garbage thrown out.
A couple of days later, a semi-local farmer came out and bought her for $2300 without so much as a test drive! It was $200 for the wheels and tires after trading in the old ones, $45 worth of propane, $15 at the car wash, and about 20 hours of work total. I also sold a 390 4Bbl intake that came with the truck for $100, so I ended up with a solid $1340 profit!
That's all for this episode, hope you enjoyed it!
+$1340 in a week? Too bad you can't do 52 of them in a year!
cdowd
HalfDork
1/2/17 6:38 p.m.
Nice! seems like a cool truck.
AngryCorvair wrote:
+$1340 in a week? Too bad you can't do 52 of them in a year!
I had the truck exactly 3 weeks total. I've known about it and had been trying to buy it for 3 years. The best deals are from un-advertised cars. If it's already on CL/fb, it's got no meat on the bone so to say. I try to do 4 a year, if I had a proper shop I could do 12 no problem.
I'm glad you moved it fast, that old LPG tank was a serious hazard. Many life times past its expiration date.
Some of a bitch I hate you
Where was this when I was looking for exactly this year and drive train.
Good job on the flip though I just cringe thinking that farmer is just going to beat the snot out of it.
Baking soda works good on rust stains, if you have a white truck Comet cleaner works better. My dad used to use Comet every spring on his work truck vans (that were all white and went through WI winters).
Any guilt about not building this truck for the Truck Challenge?
