Previous Owner Funtime

[supercharged]

Oh how I "love" the previous owner(s) of my truck, whoever and where ever they may be!

The person I purchased the truck from had no past history and claimed he never really touched the truck - one of those bought it before the "boss" said yes deals! And searches of the past DMV records went nowhere fast. So the work done on the truck in the past 50 years is a pure mystery.

But every time I start to do even the simplest mod or update I find wires and tubing that connects nowhere, missing fasteners, and holes cut to pass some item long since removed through firewalls and body panels.

And since I can never be sure what the wire or tube is for when first encountered, I have to carefully follow its contoured path only to discover it not connected at one end or both. Same with mystery tubing.

Moreover, the missing fasteners (and other small parts) really blows my mind. As if the PO thought "heck two of the six bolts are all you need to pin it back together"!! I sometimes wonder what critical missing part will reveal itself while I am driving it.

In the long run I probably would have been better just pulling all of the wiring and tubing and rerunning it all myself.

So just to make me feel like I am not alone - let me know your worst Previous Owner horror story.

[LostMy65]

I started a similar thread sometime back;
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=514042
.
The biggest stupid thing I see happen too often is filling voids with spray foam insulation.
.
On my 66 the previous owner replaced the blinkers with some stupid toggle. Hacked the wiring.
They even threw away the 105 flasher and mounted the toggle in the flashers chrome bracket.

[blown240]

My 51 has a poly tank, and the exhaust was slowly melting a hole in it. And the fuel lines had zip ties instead of hose clamps.

[markeb01]

I bought a 57 Chevy sedan one time with a SBC. The PO stick welded the motor mounts cold, so for extra support one side was held in place with a pair of Vise Grips, and the other side was held up with a C clamp. The mounts fell off when the clamps were removed, so I ground everything smooth and bought a bolt on kit!

[donthekawguy]

I'm getting close to finishing the power brakes on my 66. When I started digging in I was finding new things ever day. My newest thing to fix is the radiator support. The bolt on the pass side has no nut on the end and the drivers side is gone. All 6 of the small bolts holding some sheet metal from the fender wells to the front are gone. And that doen't include all of the other stuff already fixed.

[66Submarine]

Too numerous to mention on the several trucks I have. Did you actually expect to know what work was done in the last five decades? I'll just list today's finds on my new '68 Impala.

Intake bolts not torqued down.
As a result: Intake leaking coolant into crankcase.
P.O. attempted "fix"; coat outside of manifold in black silicone. Nice.

Spark plug wires melting on headers.

Trans cooler hose as fuel line to carb.

No clamp on trans cooler hose/fuel line on carb fitting.

Distributor cap was not latched on and just kind of fell off when I bumped into it.

PCV hole in valve cover appears (didn't really pay much attention) to have a piece of hose with nothing on it coming out of it; I guess that is the oil filler?

Alternator bracket flopping and loose.

P.S. pump belt was insanely tight, and P.S. pump had no fluid in it.

Ground straps used to tie up loose wires.

Electric choke never hooked up or wired open; it has been closed since the carb was installed, I guess.

A couple of standout truck things:

SM420 top cover gasket removed--excepting a 2" long piece that wedged it open and made it leak like a sieve.

Cracked 292 head welded back, then "resurfaced"/gouged with angle grinder. "Fix" was JB weld epoxy, I think.

Same head installed (after first hack job blew out?) with head bolts wedged in filthy holes (and not even torqued down, it seemed) and the whole head/head gasket slathered in silicone. Nice.

There are a lot more where that came from!

[franken]

Rotted battery trays. Plywood, drywall screws and a bungee strap, are not valid repairs. This is common.
Duck tape and Rustoleum are not a replacement for rockers.
Bondo inches thick goobered over most anything.
Rewiring most everything with red #12 wire and totally hacking the wiring in the process
Hacked alt bracket so if I punched it, it would throw the belt. Yay. 3" of bent strap and 2 bolts fixed that.
Parking brake parts tossed and totally new rear brakes (wheel cyls, drums, etc.) never bled and not working.

I'm not so upset about the mechanical bits, but the plywood, drywall screws, and creative badness of mudding rust up is wrong.

[69chevytrucker]

my trucks po used monofoam and furnace tape to make cab corners and rockers

[LostMy65]

Originally Posted by 69chevytrucker

Attachment 1281129my trucks po used monofoam and furnace tape to make cab corners and rockers

Next to hacked wiring, I think that foam stuff in the cab corners is the next biggest dumb fix.
My 66 had foam, but under that was a hard roofing type tar or something.

[69chevytrucker]

Originally Posted by LostMy65

Next to hacked wiring, I think that foam stuff in the cab corners is the next biggest dumb fix.
My 66 had foam, but under that was a hard roofing type tar or something.

lol ya considering rockers are about 20 bucks same for corners so why spend 25 bucks on a roll of furnace tape and 30 on monofoam make no sense

[supercharged]

Originally Posted by 69chevytrucker

lol ya considering rockers are about 20 bucks same for corners so why spend 25 bucks on a roll of furnace tape and 30 on monofoam make no sense

Answer: No welder and too much beer?

[BR3W CITY]

My truck had a near-miss electrical fire in its PO life, but instead of a whole new fuse panel, he just eliminated the bad circuit...great.

We also found BASEBALL size dents in each door from what appears to be some big-truck mirrors. We think someone went into a narrow garage with towing mirrors on , because the dents were the SAME bigass dent. Then he put well over 1/4" bondo into the area, more in some places



We also had over a quart of sand drain out from both quarter panels....and look at all those layers of paint~!
primer, blue, brown, white, blue again, then primer, then this green...

[Clyde65]

the PO on my truck also had a fire, he used house wiring to repair and also bypassed the fuse block for almost everything...

I also had a bad spakling job on both doors where the PO attempted to repair a mirror crater....

I know that some folks just cant afford to repair things by skilled mechanics or body men, but some things are just inexcusable...

[supercharged]

Originally Posted by BR3W CITY

We also had over a quart of sand drain out from both quarter panels....and look at all those layers of paint~!
primer, blue, brown, white, blue again, then primer, then this green...

My truck has the same paint!
Its so thick that when I first got the truck and large hunks poped off the body I could easily just reattach them with epoxy. I am sure if I ever sand blasted all that old paint off the truck would either be swiss cheese or at least weigh a couple hundred pounds lighter.

[supercharged]

But on a different note, I was told once in the past that many of the cars and trucks coming off the old assembly lines were treated with a bondo-type body filler to even out any sheet metal imperfections, before they went to painting.

Not sure if that was actually true - but if it was, then that could explain some of thick "paint' we find.

[1963c-10]

Originally Posted by BR3W CITY

My truck had a near-miss electrical fire in its PO life, but instead of a whole new fuse panel, he just eliminated the bad circuit...great.

We also found BASEBALL size dents in each door from what appears to be some big-truck mirrors. We think someone went into a narrow garage with towing mirrors on , because the dents were the SAME bigass dent. Then he put well over 1/4" bondo into the area, more in some places



We also had over a quart of sand drain out from both quarter panels....and look at all those layers of paint~!
primer, blue, brown, white, blue again, then primer, then this green...

That bondo is insane. When I was 17 and going through the auto body coarse at our local community college as a kid, there was a GI from Ft. Bragg that had bought an old 67 Lemans and was taking the same coarse. While doing front fender repair he ran into extensive bondo and a revolver wrapped in newspaper and bondoed into the back side of the fender. I can still remember the MP's showing up and just shaking their heads when they came to retrieve the revolvert. Gotta love some PO's.

I also found chicken wire used as backing once in another 63 I had. PO used it everywhere he used bondo as a backing. That truck was a mess and one of the few I was glad I got rid of.

[vin63]

I had to weld up more than 100 holes the PO drilled in the firewall and floor of the cab (not to mention the 40+ holes drilled in the bed). As you can see, some of the holes were quite large.


…it did motivate me to finish the exterior floor of the cab and coat it:

[Blue Ox]

It's wiring for me. I actually know my PO, pesonally. He's owned the truck since 1967... but he had some yahoo redo a bunch of his wiring over the years and add some custom stuff (like a trailer brake controller).

The end result was a complete rat's nest of wiring... most of which appears to be doing absolutely nothing. Lots of following a wire from someplace under the dash, into the engine bay, then under the truck to the rear... only to find out that it is connected to thin air at the far end.

There were 3 fuses in the fuse box... but only 1 of them was actually wired into an active circuit. Nice...

Screw it... I'm pulling everything and starting over from scratch.

[supercharged]

Originally Posted by Blue Ox

It's wiring for me. I actually know my PO, pesonally. He's owned the truck since 1967... but he had some yahoo redo a bunch of his wiring over the years and add some custom stuff (like a trailer brake controller).

The end result was a complete rat's nest of wiring... most of which appears to be doing absolutely nothing. Lots of following a wire from someplace under the dash, into the engine bay, then under the truck to the rear... only to find out that it is connected to thin air at the far end.

There were 3 fuses in the fuse box... but only 1 of them was actually wired into an active circuit. Nice...

Screw it... I'm pulling everything and starting over from scratch.

Yep that's my favorite also.

I just can't understand why anyone would leave old wiring that does nothing!

[Blue Ox]

Originally Posted by supercharged

Yep that's my favorite also.

I just can't understand why anyone would leave old wiring that does nothing!

What really blows my mind is that there are "circuits" in there that I KNOW weren't wired from the factory. Somebody intentionally added wiring after the fact... and NEITHER end is connected to anything! It's just a useless wire that was apparently thrown in for grins. Like the dude had some extra on the spool when the job was done and he just stuffed it up under the dash so it wouldn't be cluttering up his shop

[Sean C]

Man! I feel blessed about my truck's PO! He really did his best to do everything right. He did a couple of funny things with the doors, namely adding a plate to the bottom hinge and not using a bolt or two. The driver's side door has 3 total bolts in it. At first I thought the hinge was just shot, but when I looked a little closer I had to laugh when I saw a few empty holes. Messed up the front corner of the door pretty good and now has a little rust to clean up, but I can't complain especially after some of these horror stories!

Sean

[ImpalaJim]

I wouldt say previous owner here, but crappie body shop they hired! I always thought the cab and box didn't line up right. Rocker looked goofy also well I took the box off to get going on cab. They kinda sorta pulled the rocker out and filled full of mud. they then put a used cab corner on tried to hide there splice on the indention. there was like 2 2 1/2 inches of original cab flopping back there. and the pc they replaced had almost if not a full 3/4s a inch of mud on it.



So living in central Il I managed to find 1 junk yard with 1 truck in it. only useable pc on that truck was what I wanted 2 funny eh.







so needless to say the measuring and marking for the rocker on that side was pissing up a rope.

[bubba327]

yup - wiring... this was what was trying to pass for the turn signal circuits on the bed, It was removed quite a while ago but I think there over 20 different colors changes and not a single soldered connection and only a couple butt crimps. mostly twisted together and taped.

[jimbosprint]

Previous owner left me this: a bunch of abandoned spare fuel tank lines, a piece of wood that was wired to the frame with coat hangers, and some Romex house wire going from under the driver side of the cab through the fender and across the radiator to the battery.

[Monte's62]

Jimbo, you might be a winner. A lot of crazy stuff going on there. Actually all of these stories blow my mind and make you appreciate an old, worn, but sound pick-up.