HALP

So I bought an '81 Ferd F100 Custom the other day, and when I took it to the local mom-and-pop shop to try to find someone who knew about fords, I found out that apparently there was a recall issued in 1981 or 82 or thereabouts on the make, model, and year for a ridiculously shitty frame, various structural deficiencies, exhaust leaks, unsafe bits, faulty components, etc.
Ford does not have the model and year of truck on file, and won't tell me any more about it.
Wat do?

From the looks of the body your frame must be swiss cheese at this point. Hope you didn't pay more than 3 figures for that tetanus shot op

It is. I bought it to drive for a couple of months until I could afford something nicer. The used car market here is fucked. Everyone still drives their trucks until they die, or until the truck dies. This was the best used car I could get for under a thousand dollars.
I thought that I would need to pull off the bed, replace the electrical system, put new tires on it, fix the carb, replace the rear brake cable, and clean it up; but it turns out that the frame is rotted completely through, its just hard to see. The tires are mid-eighties vintage wrangler a/ts with literally no tread and I can't find tires in the proper size, the turn signals don't work and people call me a nazi and throw things at me when I try to use hand signals to navigate 4-way stops, the rear brake cable was cut maybe 20 years ago and has welded/rusted itself to the frame so I can't replace it, the front brakes are basically brand-new, but they can't overpower the engine, and I need to keep my foot on the gas or it will stall out, the floor is made of large, rusty holes, and I spilled monster on what was left of the floor this morning and it ate into the vinyl floor panels so now the whole cab smells like green monster, and I'm honestly more of a Chevy guy.

Its finished if the frame is rotted. You could try a junkyard for another similar f100 with a decent frame and swap good parts over, otherwise your better off driving it into the ground and getting something else.

what made you want to buy this? why didn't you go to a different city to buy a car?

I bought it to drive into the ground until I can afford something else, I'm just not sure it has enough life left in it for me to drive it that long.
I bought it because I live in NW Wisconsin, and unless you own a truck you are completely unemployable in this town. I can now go to another town for a car, but couldn't before because I didn't have a car, and the bus line and train service left town when the tire factory closed. The problem is, I now have so little cash that I can't afford another shit car in semi-driveable condition.
I have to decide between getting another shit truck soon, or risking it until I can afford a good/decent truck.

Look under the truck and see if there's bunch of holes in the frame. Some drunk engineer at Ford thought it would be a great idea to take a hole saw to the frame to make it lighter in 80 and 81 IIRC.

>that description
holy crap op

There are holes that are supposed to be there, and ones that are not. Why?

Scrap it and cut your losses. If everyone has a hard-on for pickups in your area get a small, fuel-efficient import.

Okay, quick update: it's also filled with vintage emissions equipment. Does anyone know what hoses I should and shouldn't pull off? I'll get you pics after the mechanics are done with it.

No, you don't understand. There are 2 kinds of people in this town: women and men. Women drive beat to shit "cute" cars imported into town when this place mattered, men drive Chevy or Dodge pickups, and pickups are worked to death or sold by the clueless widows of dead men. Our town hasn't had a whole lot of dead people since the hospital upgraded, so this was the best I could afford and I now have NO MONEY left.

>I bought a POS pick-up because my ego is so fragile I can't be seen driving a regular 'car'

Newsflash kiddo, there are more than just cute imported shitboxes around you can buy for that price point. More importantly ones that aren't completely turned to rot. I was sympathetic at the start of the thread but now? You're a fucking bell-end.

I'm pulling for ya op. It's a shame this things so shit because they're really nice looking trucks.

People in this town will not hire a man who drives anything other than a truck, snd they will tell you so to your face.
Also, here's a poor-quality picture of emissions-thulu. What should I pull and what should I leave?

Fuck

Sounds like it's time to turn 360 degrees and get out of town

>I can now go to another town for a car, but couldn't before because I didn't have a car, and the bus line and train service left town when the tire factory closed.
Fucking hell this sounds like the 19th century or something. Thank god I live in Europe and can navigate around the whole continent easily.

My State is half the size of your continent and like 99% white :)

So, I just got back from a quick excursion down the State, am happy to report that it went well. Once I got past the stop signs, the truck rarely stalled, above ~30 mph the exhaust leaks aren't really noticeable, and although the speaker is blown; the radio works pretty well and it seems that the speaker is only noticeably faulty when dealing with voices and real instruments, so I found a local radio station that has a strange fascination with the eurithmics. I got to 40 going down a hill, but then parts of the truck started to come off so I put a post-it note on the dash that says "Do not ecxeed 40mph indicated" so any of the many car thieves in town will be less likely to kill anyone accidentaly if they steal it, a neccessary precaution because the door locks stopped working apparently several years ago, and the doors are sealed units.
I also saw a Chevy of about the same year, and when I tried to floor it to keep up with him the engine made a wierd noise, started smoking a bit and smelled like burning oil, but it started working normally again almost immediately and for some reason almost completely stopped stalling out after that.
Over all, I am pleasantly surprised by my not dieing, but I still want a new car.

You have no clue what you're doing about cars, don't mess with it until you educate yourself.

That was a pointless comment. I don't care about the size of your state or the demographics of it. I'm just surprised at how shitty the infrastructure is there.

P.S. My country is 99.7% white (2011 census) :^)

Thought you said you didn't have no money after buying that POS.

Which Ford is worst Ford?

Then why do you insist on staying in what sounds like a shitty town that's only going to get shittier and shittier until it resembles some West African village or some border Mexican town.

Leave while you can.

Look at all those vacuum lines. It takes you back, it does.

What do you plan on using the truck for? If it's just commuting, you *might* be able to weld some shit to the frame, just to keep the frame together. Anyone in your town have some scrap steel subing they don't need?

Your real problem will be if you actually want to haul stuff with it - that's basically a no-no from what I'm hearing of the condition of the frame. Basically that truck bed is useless.

As far as the engine goes, try doing the basics for it, new plugs, new oil, coolant flush, etc - stuff you would be doing to it anyway. Give the carburetor some cleaner.

If you need new parts for it, try the salvage yard first.

The infrastructure is actually p. great considering that its a giant wooded dairy farm full of lakes. Gas is dirt cheap over here, and families hand down old cars to their kids, so everyone here drives, and really the state is set up for that.
I had enough money to get a couple of people who happen to be mechanics who know at least a bit about fords to hgive it $30 worth of inspecting.
Dude, the only problem with this town is that it has just grown large enough to have ultra-libs who have never seen a black person or fired a gun. Its actually really nice here, it just has subpar public transportation.
I need it to commute a few miles to and from work, but that's it. I figured on just taking off the bed or cableing it together if the truck holds together long enough for that to be a problem. The real issue is tires: the ones I have have been on there for so long that they resemble racing slicks and have begun to bubble and expand outward in a few places, but I can't seem to find any tires in the proper size.