Projects How many times have you went to look at a potential project and said Oh my God!

You talking about the primer bulb?

 

Yeah, I fall into several of the above categories... When I lived in the Chicago area I bought a car off e-bay in Austin. Flew in & drove it home. It's a situation where, if you pull it off, you're a hero... if you fail, you're a dumb-ass.
My current project turned out to be "a bit rougher" than it seemed initially. But I like it, it was cheap and I'm gonna keep at it.

 

When I started pipelining , I saw a Sunbeam Tiger sitting in a garage . We worked in the area a few weeks , I finally saw someone in the garage , and asked it for sale . The answer was yes , $1800.00 . I was living at home at the time . Told Dad , I was buying a Tiger ! He comment was “ Hope it has lots of room , your goin to need it to sleep in ! Your no longer welcome here if you bring it home !” Damn I still want one !

Strange thing , he never said a word about 428 SCJ 4speed , 67 Fairlane .

 

The first car that I looked at was a 41 Ford sedan. The body had been sitting on a trailer next to a cornfield for a couple of decades. I stopped by the house one day to ask him about it, it was a pretty complete car (fenders, suspension, engine/trans etc) and he wanted almost $2000. I finally snuck back to the house and got the door opened and there was about a foot of dirt on the floor.
Kind of kicking myself for not snagging because a few years later I bought a 41 Ford sedan body and frame with pretty solid floors for $300.

 

You're absolutely right.

The thing is, when you're looking to buy a car that is a significant distance away, I think you have to broach the topic of purchase price. A detailed conversation needs to be had to discuss vehicle condition, and what the seller will accept. If you're worlds apart on price, it doesn't make sense to travel far, only to arrive at an impasse.

Generally, when I'm doing this, the conversation will involve something to the effect of, "IF the car is as you represent it (reiterate condition of vehicle as represented by seller), then I will pay you X".

 

Looks like the supply line is running to the pressure side of the pump. Unless it's not an engine, but one of those ultra rare gasoline makers.

 

Many years ago Ibought a 49 Ford with a 289 Ford engine and trans. It was a steal $300. So I drove it home but it felt funny, kind of rubbery when it shifted. I jacked it up and looked underneath and it had a Pine 2 X 4 rear crossmember under the rear of the trans. I drove it back to the guy and got my money back.

 

Back around 1980, I looked at a '32 Ford roadster. It was a period hotrod with a 394 Olds, 6 carbs, hooked up to a '39 Ford 3 spd toploader, banjo rear dropped axle etc.. It had an angled channel job mounting the body over the original frame with a combination of angle iron brackets and all-thread....the channel job looked very sketchy to 20 year old me. The owner boasted that he couldn't let the clutch out without spinning the tires. It turned out that was more a function of clutch pedal geometry than an actual verification of power. The price was $2500 (about $9500 in today's money according to google).

20 year old me made the right decision. I didn't have the knowledge, tools or place to fix it so I passed...but 63 year old me, wishes I had enough spare cash at the time and the wherewithall to realize I was in it for the long haul and would one day be able to take it on and do it right.

 

The primer bulb I can accept, the fuel line running across the coolant hose which is preheating the fuel is a bit suss to me.

 

My 1st adventure at buying a 30s car was interesting.
At the time (1978 ish, I was 22 at the time) I was into performance cars. I could buy them cheap, and I made some money off of them selling parts and such. At the time, I was working at J C Penny auto center as a night (2pm -10pm) shift as a mechanic. The guy out front was the salesman. Usually the work load was pretty much dead that last hour (company police stated the auto shop had to be open the same hours as the store was). The salesman that worked with me most nights was about 4-5 years older then I was and he and his brother had some cool cars. One night I was telling him I was looking for a 30s car. He was telling me he had a 35 Dodge 2 door sedan back in the stone quarry at his dad's place, but it was really bad shape. The more we talked, the more I liked it. He even had a title for it in his name! He kept telling me how bad of shape it was in, I kept asking more questions. He finally gave me a price, $75 with the title. What he said was he was selling me the title, and the remains of the car was included. we made arrangements for me to look at the car the next day we were both off work.

So, the story: He bought the car in Iowa years before. He bought a donor car front subframe that was popular at the time, and hacked off the front suspension and tack welded that subframe to the original Dodge frame so it rolled around. Then he took the body to his dad's home garage and decided to chop the top 3". He sat the body up on big metal saw horses in his dad's garage, and cut off the roof, and took 3" off the A, the B, and the C pillars but didn't have any reinforcing in it. A few days later, he was in a car crash, and that laid him up for a couple months. His dad and brother tried to move the body sitting on the saw horses with the roof cut off over to the side so his dad could use the garage for the winter. When they moved the saw horses, the body fell off and when it hit the floor, it broke into two pieces along the rockers. When he recovered from the accident he went and looked at the broken body and decided the car was junk. They loaded it up in the box of the pickup, and hauled it into the stone quarry and threw it into a pile, collected all the other parts and put them there as well. The "car" had been sitting in the stone quarry for around 5 years when I went to look at it.

I took my wife of 2 years along with me to look at this 35 Dodge 2 door sedan that needed a little work, I could buy for just $75, and it had a title too! She was already accustomed to me buying $75 cars, and I always made money with them, but at the site of this one, she showed a lot of concern. I sort of stacked the pile of parts together to show here what it would look like when I got it done. She was not impressed, but the next week I drug my prize home.
It didn't take very long before I discovered that the 35's frame was not much better then the body was. I knew then building a frame was beyond my abilities at the time, but I had space to park the "car" until I acquired the ability to build the frame. It took about 10 years before I gained the skills to build the frame. Through those 10 years, at least 3or 4 job changes, a baby girl, and 3 1/2 years after that, a baby boy, several years of dirt track racing, and many performance cars, but the "35" stayed here, very much on the back burner. Pic 1 is what that 35 looked like when my son was around 7 or 8.

At one of my between real jobs, job, I was helping a guy at a little welding shop. One of the things the old guy did was built trailers. I helped him build several trailers. I bought the steel for my 35's frame from him, and he helped me get it set up, but I welded it together. I took the frame home and was able to add that front subframe on the front and put leaf springs on the rear. Shortly after that the old guy wanted to go on vacation and asked me if I would keep his shop open while he was gone. The deal was any welding I did was my pay, and any material I sold was his money. It was up to me to do whatever I wanted to do for that week. I asked him if it would be Ok if I brought my frame in and attached the body to it, and he was fine with that, he only wanted to keep the shop open while he was gone. By the time the week was over, I had the back 1/2 of body and the firewall and doors mounted on the frame. Then I took it back home.
In 1994 I opened my welding shop, working nights (4pm -10pm) with a full time day job (6am -3 pm). I took the 35 into the new shop so I had something to do if there was no work. The 35 started attracting people, and work started coming in. By that 1st winter, my shop was really busy (I had to take the 35 home) but the real job was pretty slow. I quit the real job and went to work full time in my shop. I took the 35 back to the shop and worked on it evenings until it was road worthy. We drove the 35 for 7 years and put 77,000 miles on it. Pic 2 is probably just before I sold the car.

"Oh My God' has a completely different meaning to me. I'm not scared of a little rust.
More projects I drug home most never would have, and what they looked like when I was done with them .

 

Sure, that's reasonable IF you actually discuss condition with the person. I'm trying to sell one of our modern dd's right now. Someone sent a text that they didn't want to drive 3.5 hours and waste both of our time, so they asked if I would take 75% of the listed price (had been up mere days). This was their first message. No questions about the vehicle condition, no phone call, nothing. A day before I got an offer for 50% of the list price from someone else.

Whatever it is you're selling I really prefer people who understand the merits of doing business over telephone. If you're interested in a vehicle, call. Don't waste my time and yours by having a prolonged conversation over text or email that is open to interpretation that could be had in minutes on the phone. But I grew up with paper classifieds.

 

What ARE the merits of doing business over telephone? I genuinely wonder, because to me it's nowhere near as good as mail or other text messages.

I have a hard time hearing what people say (unless I'm used to hearing the voice and how they talk). I forget to ask half of the things I was planning to ask. I'm too distracted to think of follow up questions. I forget half of what I'm told.

When it comes to text I can spend whatever amount of time I need to write down everything I am wondering. I can read a reply as many times as I like, in case I forget what's in it. Assuming the reply was written in more or less correct language there is no trouble avoiding miscommunication. I can send a text message any time, and the recipient can reply whenever they want to, they're not locked to having the discussion at the same time I happen to have time available.

I genuinely dislike telephones, and really, REALLY prefer text messages of one kind or another.

 

Written communication is open to interpretation, and as we know with vehicle ads, people quite often don't even read the whole thing.

When selling a vehicle, I prefer telephone because: 1) It conveys that the person is interested. It is very easy to text or email, but takes actual effort and thought to make a phone call and have a conversation about the vehicle. You can also get a sense if they're kicking tires. 2) It's much faster, and clearer, to have a verbal conversation. 3) It weeds out scammers. 4) If the person wants to arrange to see it, you can both agree on a mutual time immediately on the phone.

When I'm making a call about something for sale, I prepare for the call. I write down my questions, think about what else I want to ask based on their possible answers, and have it on a sheet in front of me with space for my answers.

I had a guy call about an engine I had for sale. It was disassembled and the ask was $200. He asked some questions about a few things then told me "well if I could put it together and it would run, I'd pay $200". Alright, you're not interested, and that took 2 minutes. I had another guy that emailed about it, he wasted my time 3 times wanting numbers from this and that location off the block, which I had to move out from storage, reposition, clean, photograph, and put back every time. Between that and emailing him I wasted at least an hour. After the third set of photos I didn't receive any response. Business over phone is more personal. If he would have phoned, I could have done all photos at once and known what he was looking for, so as to not waste too much of either of our time.

 

3

 

Too Many Times...

 

I also prefer to do business face to face. And I've had my share of will you take less on the phone before they've even seen what I'm selling in person which always pisses me off. However there are times when price discussion is justified on the phone. For example I saw an ad on Phoenix Craigslist for a seat for my Ranch Wagon. Problem was that Phoenix is over 300 miles from me and the price was over my budget when you factored in the cost of diesel to go pick it up. So I called the guy and explained the situation and told him I completely understood if he told me to pound sand for negotiating on the phone. He came back with a lower price (the seat had been for sale for a while) and we struck a deal on the phone. I had a buddy in Phoenix pick up the seat and pay cash for it the next day. The next week I did a speed run to Phoenix and by 5pm that night the seat was in my shop.

 

long ago called a guy about a 32 ford 5 window got in my truck drove there less than an hour away. get there guy says somebody beat me there bought it & its gone but I got a model A for sale thats been in a fire. didn't even get out of the truck pure bait & switch

 

All my cars have started as total beaters or piles of sheet metal. I'm not even sure I'd know what to do with a nicer car. Probably just leave it alone...

 

“Wild goose chase”!

 

That's exactly what I do. There's a bunch of stuff I wanna do to my shoebox, which is my first finished purchase, but I can't bring myself to rip into a car that runs and drives fine. Currently shopping for a project. My kid is 9. We're hunting for a t bucket to build for him by the time he's 12 so it's done by the time he can drive to high school. Got 3 years.....

 

Over the years I have looked at several 55 to 57 two door station wagons being advertised as being a Nomad. Even took a look at a 57 two wagon being advertised as a sedan delivery. Sometimes people don't know what they have or just know by advertising what it really is they know the difference between the asking price and the final sale price will be far apart. Ever wonder why guys who are selling a four door will show the vehicle first from the front.

 

You really need to look at used cars taking their Vin # and even paying the $10 on line to check it. I was looking a. 65 Chevelle and it had6 owners in 2 years.
These Carvana types also pass off flood damage cars.