My buddy may be trading his Chevy truck for a '69 Torino GT. It looks good from the pictures. He wants me to come look at it with him. Any particular trouble spots to check on these cars?
Unfortunately it's not a fastback, but a formal roof. Told my buddy it looks like a miniature version of my Galaxie (water it and it'll grow up). Anyhow, I found the car on craigslist... What do you guys think?
I've owned several of these cars over the years some good and some not so good. Get under the car, and check the rear frames where the leaf springs mount, MANY of these cars are rusted in this area. I don't believe that anyone is making short rails for these cars yet. You would need to find a donor car if the rails are rusty. I have replaced rear frames from a donor car, and using reproduction Mustang rails. The Mustang rails don't fit well at all! Been there done that.
Jerry
1966 Fairlane 390 8V
1940 Ford Street Rod
1949 Ford F-1
1970 Mustang Mach 1 428SCJ "Twister Special" (Sold November 25,2006)
Look for cowl problems, much like early mustangs. Also, for some reason, the trunk channel and trunks were very rust prone. If the channel's rusted, then the trunk floor is likely a goner too.
I saw the car today. It looks alright. Subframes are solid. No typical Falcon/Mustang rust around the sahckled or anything. Trunk is solid. Small holes in quarter panels. Vinyl top is slight cancer but torn up at one corner and looks pretty solid underneath and around window frame. Hood has a kink from seized springs (work fine now, just hood is somewhat bent by the one hinge).
The major problem though... Cowl rot. On the drivers side the guy said it leaks a little water inside if it rains (he keeps it covered). Floor seemed alright, but it was rotted out maybe a quarter sized hole in the rocker panel right behind the fender.
Other than that it's a good running driving car.
He asked if I'd go for teh trade or not. Since he drives a Chevy I'd be more inclined to trade even for a rotted cowl, but I said it's up to him how much work he wants to put into it. If it were'nt for the cowl I'd go for it but the cowl kinda makes it questionable. He does have all winter to work on it though and has a garage. I don't know that I'd personally want to have to deal with the cowl work though. At least now he has all the information about it to decide.
What do you guys think? Worth the trade? Again it's a '89 Chevy 1500 short bed. Gas tank has holes near the top or some such thing. Slow as all get-out 205 truck. Needs a radiator or something too. Not desperately but it's his daily driver. If he got the Torino he'd be driving his hooptie Mopar convertible through the winter.
Like I said I wouldn't really want to get into that much work. Shame though since the rest of the car isn't too bad. I let him know it's a lot of work... Basically like fixing a cowl on a Mustang is my understanding. Probably worth about what his truck is (he thinks his truck is worth $3500, I see similar trucks going for $1000-$2000 in this area). He's trying to trade the truck for any decent project car or sell it and get a project car, one or the other. He wants something reasonably solid though, and I'm not so sure he understands how much work a cowl is to fix. I let him know that I don't think I'd want to trade for that car and get into that much work.
