I bought this truck from a used car dealer in Idaho call
Guardian Auto Sales. Apparently run by a guy name Jim Fenton. Guardian in my
opinion strongly lives up to the stereotypical used car salesman reputation. I first
have to admit that I broke my own rule when buying this truck, in that I bought
it sight unseen save for the photos Jim emailed me and posted to the eBay
auction (Yes eBay auction, What was I thinking?). I do have a rule that when
buying anything over a few hundred dollars on eBay it should always be within
driving distance so that I can inspect it before paying for it lest someone exaggerate
the condition of an item on eBay. But I fucked up. I trusted Jim Fenton. I wish
I could post the original eBay listing here but it has long since expired and I
never thought to grep it for my records. The truck was described by Guardian as
rest free. This was lie number one as there were places in the rocker panels,
radiator support, Cab corners, and front fenders where the rust had eaten clear
through the sheet metal. The floor pans were obviously replaced too. They also claimed
that the truck had 78k original miles and that that it came from its original
owner (who they claimed to know), who only really drove it on the highway when using
it for camping. They made sound like it was used but in excellent shape. There
is no way the truck had 78K miles on it. The Odometer has only 5 digits after
the tenths and so I have to believe that 178K is more likely. That however is irrelevant
as it didn’t have the original motor and transmission anyway. I looked up the
Vin and found that this was originally a column shift manual and what I got was
a floor shift 4 speed. But that isn’t even the best part. After the fire I had
a closer look at the motor and realized that it didn’t have the original carb
on it. There was also evidence that mine wasn’t the first fire under the hood. But
the real beauty came when we pulled the motor getting ready for the engine
swap. We had a lot of trouble getting the old motor out and noticed that the
sheet metal around the shifter tower on the trans looked like it had been cut
with tin snips. We had to turn the motor sideways to get the transmission to
clear the welded in frame cross member. This was not right. After getting the
motor out I ran the serial number from it and found out that though it was a
360ci (which was the size of the original motor) this one was a heavy duty 360
out of an F600 dump truck! This motor and trans are definitely not the same as
the pickup 360s as the bell housing is much bigger to accommodate the very
heavy duty clutch of the dump truck. Long story short this truck didn’t even
have its original motor. Last but not least this truck came from the factory
with 2 tone paint. And it was poorly repainted at some point. All that said,
the price I paid for it, though High for this condition, wasn’t a complete
ripoff. In my opinion this truck is worth about $500 to $1k less than what I
paid for it and that Guardian auto sales knew full well about all these issues
and lied in the eBay auction and to me on the phone.
I bought this truck from a used car dealer in Idaho call
Guardian Auto Sales. Apparently run by a guy name Jim Fenton. Guardian in my
opinion strongly lives up to the stereotypical used car salesman reputation. I first
have to admit that I broke my own rule when buying this truck, in that I bought
it sight unseen save for the photos Jim emailed me and posted to the eBay
auction (Yes eBay auction, What was I thinking?). I do have a rule that when
buying anything over a few hundred dollars on eBay it should always be within
driving distance so that I can inspect it before paying for it lest someone exaggerate
the condition of an item on eBay. But I fucked up. I trusted Jim Fenton. I wish
I could post the original eBay listing here but it has long since expired and I
never thought to grep it for my records. The truck was described by Guardian as
rest free. This was lie number one as there were places in the rocker panels,
radiator support, Cab corners, and front fenders where the rust had eaten clear
through the sheet metal. The floor pans were obviously replaced too. They also claimed
that the truck had 78k original miles and that that it came from its original
owner (who they claimed to know), who only really drove it on the highway when using
it for camping. They made sound like it was used but in excellent shape. There
is no way the truck had 78K miles on it. The Odometer has only 5 digits after
the tenths and so I have to believe that 178K is more likely. That however is irrelevant
as it didn’t have the original motor and transmission anyway. I looked up the
Vin and found that this was originally a column shift manual and what I got was
a floor shift 4 speed. But that isn’t even the best part. After the fire I had
a closer look at the motor and realized that it didn’t have the original carb
on it. There was also evidence that mine wasn’t the first fire under the hood. But
the real beauty came when we pulled the motor getting ready for the engine
swap. We had a lot of trouble getting the old motor out and noticed that the
sheet metal around the shifter tower on the trans looked like it had been cut
with tin snips. We had to turn the motor sideways to get the transmission to
clear the welded in frame cross member. This was not right. After getting the
motor out I ran the serial number from it and found out that though it was a
360ci (which was the size of the original motor) this one was a heavy duty 360
out of an F600 dump truck! This motor and trans are definitely not the same as
the pickup 360s as the bell housing is much bigger to accommodate the very
heavy duty clutch of the dump truck. Long story short this truck didn’t even
have its original motor. Last but not least this truck came from the factory
with 2 tone paint. And it was poorly repainted at some point. All that said,
the price I paid for it, though High for this condition, wasn’t a complete
ripoff. In my opinion this truck is worth about $500 to $1k less than what I
paid for it and that Guardian auto sales knew full well about all these issues
and lied in the eBay auction and to me on the phone.
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