Ok guys, gimmie your best stories

my 67 coupe:

cigar lighter: looks as though NEVER used.. ash tray filled with ashes, cigerette wrappers, and mars bar wrappers.

dash wiring: some unused wires with spit ends just left there, some parts held together with hockey tape, some weird fuse or something taped to it (still no clue what it is).

rear seats: not bolted in. no seat belts either.

reaplaced the trunk with fiberglass.. AND the floor, yes, some genuis replaced the floor with a crapy home made fiberglass over rusty metal.

heater: same genuis hooked up the heater hoses backwards.

i also found a REALLY old bobby pin... about it.

Chevy Luv pickup: Non locking nuts on body lift kit.
22 caliber rifle rounds under seat

Brand new 76 Firebird: Sockets stuck on inner fenderwell bolts.

Nissan Pathfinder: Wire connected to positive terminal of battery and running under
frame not connected to anything, eventually toasting the starter.

65 Mustang: 289 with 7 pop-up pistons and one flat top (guess which one ended up
sideways in the cylinder)

91 Camaro: Socks inside of dashboard?

Several B-52's: Found many handtools inside body, wings, tail, etc., not to mention
spare bolts and nuts rolling around.

Hack said:

You contact your state's department of motor vehicles. The state keeps a record of the past owners of a car. I found the owners of my car back to '76, but the state threw away all the records before that.

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isnt that only if the car hasnt left the state?? what if the car was from another state but later moved to a diff. state? and then I moved it to a diff. state when i bought it?

I quietly walked away from these deals, so it's not really a "PO" story exactly...

I have looked at several Fords/Ford parts over the years that were advertised as "Boss 302". (even a Granada that was advertised as having Boss 302 power)

You cannot run across a cheap car or part that has Boss 302 billing and not look, right? So I would alway track these deals down and look.

Never found Boss 302 parts or engines swapped into the cars. It was always some ignorant big shot that had no idea what he was talking about. It never failed, the conversation goes like this:
Me: "I don't think that is a Boss like you said it was..."
Them: "Oh yeah it is! Look, it has a 4 barrel. It's a Boss."

One guy even insisted that a 2v 302 with stock carb and intake was a "Boss".

I stopped trying to correct these folks so I could actually buy the stuff at a reasonable price, or for their own knowledge... they never believe you and end up accusing you of trying to "steal" their "Boss" by convincing them it is a lesser part/car/engine.

Dave

I bought a 67 Stang recently, and gutted the interior it had (Fi you want to call it that. Anyhow the idiot that had it before took things apart and lost screws panel clips glove compartment bolts etc.

Anyhow I;ve found all kinds of stuff in those panels. It's a shame people do not take care of there things. Anyhow I got the car for a great price, I have not spent much money, and it's looking great.
I doubt I'll ever sell old Gurtrude LOL

The 2nd and 3rd 67 mustang I owned both had needles in them. Like someone was in the car shooting up. And they were under the carpet. How they ended up under the carpet....
The first on I got got I got for Christmas when I was 16. Spoiled right ? WRONG!!! They bought it for $800 and I had to pay them for half. It was an original 6 cyl form the east coast. It had a 289 in front of a fmx.(found out fmx's are cast iron when I pulled it out and had it sitting on my chest.) The car was still a 4 lug pattern with the original rearend. The car had a no joke, paint job with a paint brush. The only original metal on that thing was the cowl, roof and decklid. I mean everything was rusted out. Floor boards, wheel wells, sections of frame in many spots,door cancer,floors,fenders. Even the hood was toast.
I finally get the thing ready to paint year and a half later. It took so long, I was so poor it wasn't funny. 16 trying to restore a car. What the hell was I thinking ? I mean to say I was in the junk yards pullin off quarter panels in the junk yard because it had less rust than mine. It took me two weeks to pull them. No air tools allowed in the yard. So I had to pull them using a concrete chisel and hammer. Horrible, horrible 2 weeks. I would only wish that on one person. That name is to come.
I finally get it painted. It cost me 500 bucks at Earl Shcibe. What a waste. The first time I get there, there is dirt all over in the paint, I mean chunks. "Oh don't worry, we're going to redo it for you." God I hope so. I go to pick it up the 2nd time, and there are runs in the paint, which he blames on my primer. So I get out a razor blade and cut it. What do ya know, nothing but paint, my primer hadn't run. REPAINT. I go to pick up the 3rd time and there was more dirt in the paint and no clear coat. THEY FORGOT THE CLEAR. Actually they had probably lost so much money already, they were trying to take a short cut was my guess. Not to mention they bent the piss out of my cowl trying get my windshield wipers off. I drop it and tell them I will just see them in court.
They car waits in my driveway to be sold because I'm moving cross country. I get a phone call(as if the car didn't look bad enough) from my best friend at midnight....he told me that when he left my house he ran his 67mustang into mine!!!!! He of course hit mine with his chromes steel bumper. No damage to him. He shifted and dented my headlight bucket, and chipped the paint all to hell.
Why did he leave my house so late you ask. After all this, it was because he was DATING MY SISTER!!!!!! Who is this evil doer, this mad man who enjoys kicking a classic when it's all ready down. Just to see if it can get any worse. 12SEC67 Gasp!! That's right you all know him. I never did kick his ass. That's true friendship for you. There is you Hallmark moment for they day.

The left motor mount on my 65 broke, which caused my engine to move around every time i hit the gas. when the engine moved it pushed my throttle linkage, which caused the enginge to move more and open the throttle more.
I was sitting at a light and taped the gas peddle and it went straight to the floor
the engine came up so much that it put a dent in my hood. luckily there was nobody in front of me

My story

All through high school, I was the guy reading car magazines in study hall. I always liked Shelbys. After graduation, and out in the working world of 1970, I had saved up some money and started looking for a Shelby. Didn't matter what year, or what color, or what engine.
Looking at the local newspaper classifieds (the Times, from Hammond IN) in the fall of 1970, I noticed an ad. It said 67 Gt 350, needs $275 dollars in body work. Crap I thought, I don't want a messed up one. So I never called.
2 months later, I mentioned to a fellow I went to high school with, that I was looking for a Shelby. He said that his soon to be brother-in-law was selling his 67. He gave me the phone number.
I called, saw the car and bought it. A White GT 350. I put $10.00 down and was to bring the rest of the money the next day. The next day I was there, paid him, picked up the title and receipt. And of course the keys. I turned to leave when the owner said, wait a minute. I have an estimate for the body work (nothing really bad at all). You guessed it, it said $275.00
It was the same car.

i bought my 67 in 1977 when i was 16 for a 1000 bucks-still have it. well im putting a stereo in it and notice japanese writing on alot of the parts on the stang. i walked in the house cussing under my breath "isn't anything built in america anymore?" my stepdad ask what i was talking about. i said "everywhere i look it says FOMOCO on it!"

69stang351 said:

isnt that only if the car hasnt left the state?? what if the car was from another state but later moved to a diff. state? and then I moved it to a diff. state when i bought it?

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No, I got my car in North Dakota. I got the records as far back as they went from the North Dakota DMV. The ND DMV was able to tell me that it had been registered in MN previously. So then I called the MN DMV and got the rest of the records (back to '76 anyhoo).

I have a bunch. I had a 69 Cougar Eliminator that had ladies lycra spring green pants from the sixties in the door. I had a 69 Mach 1 Cobra Jet car where the kid built this big fancy motor in Vo-Tech with dual carters, headers, 12.5:1 pistons, lemans rods, etc. The running temp was always erratic so I pulled the stat, which was upside down!

Mt present car a 69 fastback, had the blower moter wired to a toggle switch, even though all the factory stuff would have worked just fine.

I think the picture of my car the day I bought it says it all:



351c, tunnel ram, twin 600 Q-jets, reverse valve body c6, and the worse cam you can use for that setup.

White wall tires, 14 inch rims, 40 yr old suspension, stock drum brakes (passender rear not even hooked up), 2.8 stock 8 inch rear.

"Done car, just get in and drive it around"

uhhh yeah

Here's just a sampling of the odd/stupid things I've found done by po's. Luckily I have pics of some of this stuff so if I ever kill the PO that did this, I think the judge will understand and let me off.

-Turned the windshield washer reservoir into an overflow for the radiator.

-Spray painted the lens of the light on the end of the console blue. Did the same thing to the door lock knobs and one of the hood turn signal lenses.

-Covered the sunvisor (yes, that's singular), and door panels w/carpet.

-Covered the torn seats with a seat cover. When that one was worn out, he simply put another one on top of it. He took off the chrome trim on the side of the seats off, put the covers on, then put the chrome trim back (on top of the covers). He also wraped the strings for the covers all around the metal bars and track for the seat. I couldn't move the seat and had to cut the seat covers off.

-Somehow managed to lose one of the parking light bezels and about 1/2 of the housing & lens. Cut a round hole in a piece of metal. Screwed metal to front valance and carefully balanced parking light assembly in hole. Pic

-Attached pass. front window crank handle with a screw that was way too big. The shaft it goes on became badly misshapen and eventually broke off so I'll have to replace the whole regulator.

-The package shelf had rotted due to leaking window seal. Idiot PO aparently wanted to install speakers. The package shelf was too rotted to support them. So, rather than fix the window and replace the shelf, he took the shelf out, added a couple thin pieces of plywood where the speakers are supposed to go, and reinstalled the rotted shelf.

-Didn't check for wires when cutting off the old quarter panel. Managed to cut throught the dome light wire.

-Tried replacing the quarter panel by putting it over what was left of the original panel and screwing it on w/three screws, nothing else (BTW, said quarter panel is for a 68 FB, mine's a 67 coupe). Pic 1 Pic2

-Backed 3/4 inch bondo w/cardboard. Pic

-Put about 3 layers of carpet (house carpet, not auto carpet) in the passenger compartment and the trunk (I think this was an attempt to fix the holes in the trunk and floor boards). Pic (That light colored stuff up by the firewall is cut-pile house carpet)

-Mounted a small oil pressure gauge under the dash so that you have to bend over with your head almost resting on the console in order to see it. I replaced the oil pressure sending unit and the original gauge works fine. Basically, rather than replacing a $10 part, this genius installed a $15-$20 aftermarket manual gauge, cut a hole in the firewall to run the tube through, and bought an adaptor so it would fit where sending unit goes. The gauge was also held on w/ a zip tie.

-And I won't even go in to how he tried patching the holes in the floor pan. I'll just say that I'm really tired of drilling out screws.

-Chelle

My heater core let go in my 66 Fastback, and the heater box was pretty badly cracked, so I got new parts and started tearing the old stuff out.

Inside the old heater box, lodged behind the flap by the passenger side vent was an old Marlboro box. It was old enough that it didn't have a surgeon generals warning on it, so I figure that places it at least in the mid-80's. Inside the stashed cig box was a baggie with some brown dust and about a dozen little spherical objects. Turns out the previous owner must've stashed his stash of weed in the vent door and it got too stuck to retrieve.

On my last 69 Cougar XR7 hardtop (now sold and being further restored) the car was put together in a california junkyard, using parts from both 1969 and 1970 cougars. We called it the "69/70" the car had a 1970 front clip, 69 body, 70 motor, 69 trans, blue 70 std door panels, green 69 seats, 69 glass on the drivers side, and 70 on the pass side, and a 70 decore interior console. While digging through the car I found thay the PO had cut and respliced every wire in the dash, in an almost spiteful attempt to cure a starting problem. Also, underneath the backseat was about a dozen razor blades, a mini propane lighter, and other misc crack periphanalia. Also, the backseat supports had come loose, I wondered how until I noticed the two 12'' subwoofer speaker holes in the package tray. And stashed under the carpet was a vintage **** mag and the build sheet to different car. Thank god the car was cheap, and not mine anymore.

Oh, yeah, I also found a condom (unused thank God) under the carpet. I don't think I want to know how it got under the carpet.

-Chelle

Did I just make the biggest mistake ever?

I live in Dallas.
I drove to kansas to look at a 65. It looked, sounded, drove good, so I handed the guy the cash for the car and was on my merry way with my wife following me.

First stop, lets gas it up, and start the trek back to Dallas.
About a mile from the seller's house, I stop at a light, and it dies.
It's cold and rainy, and I needed this all to work out as my wife is not the most patient person in the world.

Now, it is getting colder and rainy-er, and It won't turn over. 10 minutes goes by, and my wife who just now figured out I am no longer following her makes it back and says what's wrong?

This was the worst feeling ever. I handed over all my money to someone I don't know in a town a million miles away for a car that won't start and I have to somehow get back to dallas. I have never felt stupider or more embarrassed in my life.

Fortunately, I was essentially in Mayberry and the local sherriff drives by and sees me and has me pop the hood. After a few minutes, he says altight, lets go to the auto store and get you a new starter coil yours is dead.

While installing the coil on the side of the road, the seller drives by and freaks out that the car is not running, So, he calls his dad over and we all go back to his dad's shop. He and his dad looked it over, and replaced fuel lines and fuel filter and worked their asses off to make sure the cur would get me home. They turned out to be awesome! I was scared they had screwed me. I drive the car every day now because it is quite fun and dependable.

I cringe everytime I remember that first stop after buying it. It was just like What the F*** have I done? I am soo stupid.

But I am thrilled that it was just a small glitch.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share a mustang story.

while installing new door panels, i found a really old craftsman screwdriver inside the door.

also my dad has had friends replace floor panels with street signs. they'd never rust so why not lol.

i still have chunks of bondo from my car thats 1/2 to 3/4 inch think.

the hole in my trucks differential has been JB Weld'ed over

my 67 coupe had slapper bars on it that were so long and installed wrong that they hit where the rear passenger's feet would go.

My 55 ford truck had about 20 dollars and about five pounds of change in the glovebox along with about 30 12 gauge rounds. While taking apart the body I found about 5 wrenches including one behind the headlight?? The mustang had everything from newspapers from the late 60's to things like 66 Blake 96 found in his (found some weed in the ashtray) I didn't have to worry about floorpans in mine though becuse there weren't any but my quarter panels consisted of galvinzed roof flashing pop riveted in place, 1inch(not exaggerating) of bondo and bond backed by cardboard. The frame rails in the trunk were made up of the same things, sure is a pain but thats whats fun.