Me and little Montgomery have been building a falcon I wondered why it was parked and left to set. Well we have solved this mystery after doing all the body work replace engine all the ball joints and 90% of the the car the short intial cruise we found it!! The transmission was jumping out of 2nd gear luckyly we had a spare. Mabey old age just wonder what parked some of your old cars before your resurrections.
My '60 F100 sat for 10-15 years when I picked it up last year and I still haven't figured out why it was parked. It is in great condition (considering its a truck and should have been worked hard). It even had an engine rebuild in the 80s.
I bought a 54 Ford pick up. The owner had given on it . Seams it would run some times for day's and some times for just seconds. I finely found the problem. Sludge in the gas tank. The sludg was to thick for the gas line so you could not see it in the glass filter. But it would clog the fuel line.It was floating around like a glob of jelly.
My belair sat for 25 years under a carport after having a cosmetic restoration (interior and exterior). A lady bought it in '84, drove it 100 miles and parked it. Don't know why, it runs and drives fineish.
My 51 Caddy dropped a valve and hammered a piston back in 1977. Sat in a barn in Eastern OK until 2007.
63 Cadillac had a freeze plug under bellhousing with a hole in it. Only thing I found wrong. That had it sitting in a pasture for 20 years.
Bought a 235 chevy engine and trans from a 54 first series truck and the guy said that something was wrong with it, that is why the farmer parked it. The clutch disc was in backwards we found out after pulling the trans. Guy probably did a clutch job and installed it wrong and never could figure it out. Funny stuff.
Guy never drove it after that according to the guy I got it from. I do believe it wouldn't have drove if in backwards.
Most everything I buy is just a shell.So either mechanical problems or used as a parts car is the probable reason.
My 63 ford's gas tank straps rotted out where they slip into the crossmember...after loosing the tank, while going across train tracks, with a makeshift attempt to fix it..i said to hell with it...still sitting in my field rotting, im pretty sure the frame is shot now...oh well, so it goes...
1984 I yanked a 71 Falcon wagon outta a garage in Yorba Linda....been sitting for 8 years and used as a dog house for the lady's golden retrievers(hair every "f"ing where). Borrowed a battery form work...would crank for days-but no fire! Buddy & I pushed it the 2 blocks to the Shell station I worked at..1st thing,popped the dizzy cap...what rotor..we don't need no stinking rotor. Had one on the shelf! I drove the axels offa that wagon! Turns out her husband had puller the rotor to keep their kid from "borrowing" the car.... Kid joined the navy, husband found a new wife...owner wanted the wagon gone..who was I to argue...
Ot rig but there is a 77 Ford F 250 sitting in my driveway that hasn't been tagged for over ten years that now belongs to my mom and her companion before that. The truck probably hasn't been on the road for fifteen years but could hit the road with a new battery and new set of tires (it sat so long the ones on it are dry rotted). Mom's companion of 20 something years bought it from a widow years ago and probably drove it less than 1000 miles in the time he had it and it has been parked most of the time for the last 10 or 15 years. It does have a big ugly camper on it though and has been a camper rig since new. I think a lot of those cars that sat for years were probably sitting for about the same reason. The owner/driver lost interest in them, bought a new rig or they had minor or possibly major mechanical issues that kept getting put off as far as being taken care of.
My Plymouth had been in some sort of accident at one time which damaged the right side and a thing or two underneath. My guess is it ran down a ditch judging by some big scratches on the X member. Then, continuing to guess, it went to a body shop who mostly repaired it but never painted it. I think the owner never came to pay for the work and after a time, the car was sold to the salvage yard where I found it. It sat in a garage at the salvage place long enough that the tires were flat and sunk into the gravel floor. I bought it in 1973.
I guess some people not mechanically minded get some sort of mechanical problem, and are either told, or just figure it is going to cost a BUNDLE to fix. So they also assume they will get nothing for it the way it is, if they tred to sell it.....................So it just sits and rots......
Best I can figure for my 52 Customline is the rear wheel cylinders started leaking and they couldn't get the drums off and eventually all the brake fliud drained out and it just sat.
Parted out a 56 Buick a while back, gave my friend the nailhead. Motor turned over by hand and didn't make any scary sounds when cranked with a battery. New carb & gas, no fire. The distributor was no good. Put a new one in & it fired right up. He said it ran like a dream. It's in the hands of another HAMB'r now
my 1962 f100 sat for like five years while the previous owners dad died of cancer they would let there 15 year old go drink and play in it. When I got it he had broken off the dash knobs the e brake handle and scratched his name across the back window. The dad wasn't dead yet when I got the car so they wheeled him to the window he looked super sad and I don't know why they did that
picked up my 56 cadillac sedan deville after it has been sitting in a garage for over 30 years. the trans went bad on it and the owner could not find a shop that could fix it. so it sat. then another guy bought it with the intent to restore it, and then found another car that he would rather have, so it sat for another 5 years in his garage and another 5 years in the back of an outdoor storage lot. this car has only 26,000 original miles on it. the interior, headliner, dash, etc are all in excellent shape. the car started to get that moisture rust from sitting in the open field.
I think the Jonses killed most of them. The jonses get the latest model, you gotta have the latest model, eventually, even the kid who buys it for $150, saves up enough $ to buy something "better", newer or even older that's "cool". That car's not new enough to be cool and not old enough to be cool, so when one little thing goes wrong, it's an excuse to park it and move on. It sets for 20-30 years, then gets discovered, it's finally old enough to be cool, next thing ya know, someone is postin' pictures on the HAMB of their great new find, and the Jonses are all jealous!
The 39 Ford trnsmission died in 1958 ... Pushed it into the shed and forgot about it. Sat there, unloved until January of 2005. Drove it out of the shop ... on September the 29th 2007 ... First time it had turned a wheel under it's own power since 1958.
I parked Ozelle the '55 Ford in the late '80s because the front crossmember (the one under the radiator that the front legs of the lower control arm attach to) was rusted out real bad, my cousin wrecked a '55 because a rusted out crossmember failed and caused the suspension to collapse suddenly on one side when the bolt holding the control arm pulled through the crossmember. About that time we moved to Baltimore and I left it at in the shed at my parents' place throughout the time we lived in Baltimore. I concentrated on Henrietta the '38 Ford pickup during that time, money has been tight a lot of the time, just got started today on installing the crossmember I bought for it 20 years ago. Just finished changing the front brakes over to discs with spindles and the whole works from a '72 Mercury Montego. Engine still turns freely and interior is still nice. My parents bought the car new.
Could not say exactly. I bought my 56' from a person who had it and another person ect. ect. and had not been driven by any of them. The 1st time on the road the old glide didn't shift into 2nd. It had a stripped governor gear.
I bought a 58 Ranchero from the car dealership I worked at. The dealership owner got it in a weird deal for a bunch of cars at one time--seems a guy owed him money or something. Previous owner put in a nice 302 / C4 and never got it running.It sat in a garage at the car lot for 5-6 years. I talked the dealer out of the car for $300.00, figuring it may need engine work / timing gear stuff,etc. After playing with it for awhile,turned out somebody put diesel in the tank--cleaned it out--flushed the system and drove it for almost 5 years,don't think I touched it after that!
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