October 19, 2003  -  You're not going to believe what happened! After spending the past couple weeks working periodically on the '68 cab (cutting rusty sheetmetal out, fabricating patch panels, sandblasting, etc.) I've found a different cab...and this one is actually worth saving! This was an E-bay truck purchased together with a buddy of mine I met through a Ford truck forum. (The story of the truck's acquisition is a VERY interesting story. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to read the tale!)

So...fortunately other than some lost man-hours, there isn't a major loss in letting that blue cab go and getting started on this one. This is another '68 and is in much better shape. It DOES still have rust...but only a fraction of it's predecessor. The truck had set in a grove of trees since 1978, where it seemed to be a major field-mouse hangout...the cab stunk to high heaven and there were mouse-nests in every nook and cranny. There were nests down in the door pillars almost halfway up the height of the cab...which meant there was a lot of material in there to catch rainwater and hold it inside, allowing the pillar to rust from the inside out.  When disassembling the truck, we didn't notice this until the front fender came off, revealing a gaping hole in the pillar. The passenger-side pillar fared much better. While it IS a little rusty inside, it's not too far gone to save.

The cab brace is perfect on each end where it contacts the rocker panels and there's no rust in the floorpans, aside from the inevitable surface rust, but it was obvious from rust pits on the passenger-side floorpan that the cab was saved in the nick of time. The passenger-side cab corner is in good shape, but there is some rust-through in the driver-side cab corner. The passenger-side cab mount is perfect (the first one I've seen in this condition!) but the driver's-side mount has just enough flaky rust to require replacement. No problem, I already have a pair of cab mounts....oh, and on this cab the firewall is perfect.

I went to the shop this morning and closely surveyed the rust damage. The cab corner will be no problem, neither will the cab mount. The door pillar will require a bit more work however, but since this area will be completely hidden by the fender it won't have to be pretty. I spent several hours carefully cutting the rusted portion of the pillar out and then I cut a patch panel from the yellow '70 cab I'd initially borrowed firewall panels from.

Pat had a head start by the time I arrived at the 'parting-out' party of this '68. He had the doors off and the cab about 80% stripped. Here's a shot after we removed the front clip.

This was taken immediately after removing the cab. Since we didn't have access to additional bodies to help lift it off, we did this: We lifted up the passenger side of the cab up and inserted two 2x8 boards, let the cab down on the ends, then lifted up the driver's-side and slid the cab down the boards to the ground. We basically just did the reverse to get it up on the trailer. Fortunately we had a soft grassy spot to maneuver the cab around, so it wasn't getting scratched.

My wife shot this out the back window on the Interstate somewhere out in the middle of Iowa. This is the first time this truck has felt the wind of the road in 25 years!

Buying a Ford parts truck on E-bay

The good, the bad, and the ugly

I'm on E-bay daily...several times per day, usually. I just like to keep up with what's for sale for these old pickups...you'll never know when you'll find a good deal on something.

Case in point:

I saw an auction for a '68 Ford pickup. It was only about 2½ hours away from me and the bidding started at $100...with no reserve! He described it (read description at right) as very straight and rust-free. Though I'd already gotten started fixing up a rust-bucket cab, I went ahead and sent him an e-mail asking for some more details on the cab rust. I told him the normal problem areas and asked him to check these areas. If nothing else, the inner fenderwells and rear bumper/brackets were worth the asking price. I gave him my name and number and told me to either e-mail or call me back.

The auction was nearing an end and I hadn't heard back from him, so I figured it wasn't as rust-free as he'd stated in his description and he simply chose to not answer....so I didn't bid on it. However, about 15 minutes AFTER the auction was completed (at about 9 on a Thursday evening), I get a phone call from the seller. He proceeds to tell me that there had only been 2 bids on the truck, and the final winning bid was only $107.50...but he'd decided he wasn't going to let it go for that. He then went into a long spiel about how rust-free the truck was, how straight the body was, etc. etc...and asked me if I'd give him $200 for it. Hmmmm....I'm thinking "..you can't DO that!" but I kept it to myself. I told him I'd have to talk it over with my wife and I'd let him know. He made me promise to call him back the next morning with a definite answer either way.

So...Mary and I discuss it, and basically decide against getting it. We'd decided that $200 just wasn't in the immediate budget for another parts truck. I went to bed that night and sulked a little, knowing that it was still a decent deal and that I was missing out.

I woke up the next morning several hours before I needed to leave for work, so I decided to check my e-mail. I then popped up on E-bay to take one last look at the listing for the truck, and when I did, it suddenly dawned on me that the buyer's username was very familiar. I'd seen that username somewhere before....but where?? I checked the buyer's previous auctions, and saw he'd recently made a purchase of another '68 Ford pickup, so out of curiosity I went to that E-bay listing. When I saw the pictures of the truck, I KNEW who it was...a guy named Pat with whom I'd exchanged messageboard posts on a Ford trucks messageboard and he lived about 2½ hours the opposite direction! Hmmm...again! I wonder...although the seller was trying to sell the truck out from under the Pat, maybe we could each chip in $100 and get the truck together, part it out (I knew he didn't want the cab) and everyone would be happy.

So...I got Pat's contact info from the forum, did a quick PeopleSearch on the web and got his phone number. I called him up right then, explained who I was and told him that the seller of the parts truck he'd just won on E-bay the previous evening had just contacted me and wanted to sell the truck for more than Pat had won the auction for. He was surprised, obviously, since the seller hadn't contacted him yet, so he didn't know what was going on. I explained to him my suggestion on going in together on the purchase of the truck, but told him since he'd won the auction fair and square, the ball was in his court...he had first crack at it. Pat thanked me for alerting him about this guy and told me he'd think about it and call me back.

He called back a little while later and told me that he'd done some research on E-bay and found that unless the seller actually sent him an e-mail saying he wasn't going to sell the truck, thereby documenting it, there wasn't much he could do. He said he'd be interested in buying it together with me, and told me to deal with him, but not let him know I'd contacted him privately. Cool, huh? Well, not so fast...

I called the seller and told him I'd take the truck for $200....and wouldn't you know it, the guy then starts to tell me how he'd be stupid to sell it for "only" $200, because it was worth more than that for parts! He went into a long-winded discussion about his perfect E-bay feedback (no negatives), about how he'd run an auto repair business for years, about how he hates Fords because he always gets screwed when selling them, etc. etc...It was right then lots of little red flags starting going up in my mind. I just KNEW this was the kind of guy who might agree to sell it to me for one price, and then jack the price up after I'd made the long drive there. So I told the seller no thanks, I was no longer interested. I immediately called Pat and told him what had happened, that I was bowing out of the whole deal and he could do whatever he wanted with the situation.

HERE'S THE
SELLER'S ORIGINAL
E-BAY LISTING:

"This is a 1968 Ford Pickup. It has a 360 motor and 4 speed transmission. Don't know if it runs. The radiator is gone. Tires do hold air. The body is very solid and not all dented up. Before you email and ask NO there is no rust around the hood hinges. The bed has no holes in it. This is a very solid truck. I do not have a title to this truck. The vin # is F10YKD*****.  I am selling this as is for junk or parts. Email with any questions (serious inquiries only). Have option to end this auction early. Payment in full in my hands within 5 days of end of auction. Contact me within 24 hours of end of auction. Serious Bidders Only!"