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Originally posted by jadesville:
Rust is pretty the main concern.

I would start with the cowl. If the owner lets you, take a quart of water and poor it into the cowl, if it leaks, it will drip into the passenger compartment under the dashboard. Cowl's are difficult and time consuming to repair and can be expensive.

Go underneath the car and take a look at the floor pans, floor pans are generally easy to replace. Take a look at the frame rails and the torque boxes. I'd especially look for shady repair jobs on the floorpans, if they've been replaced. Often these cars will rust from the inside out, so if the owner will let you, peel back the carpet, look for surface rust on the floor boards, if you have surface rust on the passenger side, it may give you an idea if the heater core was leaking or not, especially if the floor pan is rusted on just that side, and the torque boxes and frame rails are cherry. There's four frame rails, and these are very difficult to check, these should be cherry.

Take a look at the fender aprons, if the battery is still located up front, check underneath the bracket for rust and decay. Look at the shock towers for cracks, especially where they mate at the frame rails. If the radiator support has been replaced, it could give you an idea of the car was in an accident. Also peak behind the hood hinges, sometimes these where they are bolted to on the aprons can get ripped up pretty bad. Looking at the top of the aprons, comparing them to the rest, if they are missing holes to mount the fender too, it is a reproduction peice.

Take a look at the lower doors and see if there's any obvious bondo, any bubbling on the paint, or vinyl top if it has one, will give you an idea of where it's rusting at.

Check around the windsheild moulding, drip rails and the rear window moulding for rust, sometimes you can take a flashlight and shine it and peak through, hopefully they removed the moulding when they painted the car. Open up the trunk , if he has matting, ask him if you can take a look at the trunk drop offs with a flash light.

Does the car have power steering? If it does, when you go on the test drive, make sure you go for atleast a 10 minute drive, and when you pull back, go under the car and look for leaks. Places to look for is at the power ram, control valve and at the pump. If it doesnt, don't worry about it, but take a look at the condition of the linkage. Check the steering wheel freeplay, the average is aroud 1 inch.

The car could have been either equipped with front drums or discs, depending on the options, but most likely drums. If it has discs, make sure to question him about it, a common swap is the Granada/Maverick swap onto these cars, there's differences in the spindles, specifically the steering arm has a larger bore for a different size tie rod which is larger. If it has power brakes, make sure the booster isn't leaking. You can typically tell if the master cylinder is leaking if you see paint either faded or wiped clean and see the underlaying coat of primer behind the steering gear box and on the side of the frame rail.

I would find out if the engine has ever been rebuilt, how many miles are on it, tyoe of oil he's been putting in it, etc. Doesnt hurt to run a compression test. Listen for the normal things when he's running the engine. Since that transmission has been rebuilt, if it's been recently, it better be damn well clean.

There's a lot more, this is what has hit me for now, if you do go ahead and buy it, let me ask you, what do you plan to do with the car? You'll also want to get all of his logs and receipts.

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nice info man!!

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*shiftylx*

2013 Race Red 5.0 "Lucy"
1967 Lime Gold 289 coupe "Ethel"