Thanks to Jim S. for sending in this one! This is a 1982 Ford F-100 short-box pickup with a topper and it’s located in West Valley, New York. The seller has it listed on eBay with an asking price of $2,995, which is somewhere between the “low retail” and “average retail” price, according to NADA. There are cheaper ones out there for sure, but for a nice, original truck that may be a good price.
This is an ex-Military truck; US Army, to be specific. I’m assuming that being an ex-Military vehicle it hasn’t been spared any maintenance at all. The seller says that it is in great shape, outside of a couple of rust-through areas which are fairly easily fixable. I learned how to weld by fixing the rust on my parents’ 1969 F-250 and if I can do it, I know that anyone can. This F-100 is a “mint green” color but it looks like they put one drop of mint green into a vat of white paint to me. It’ll be fairly hard to match this paint without it looking like you tried to match the paint and didn’t quite get it right. This may be a rare instance where I’d want to do a color-change to a stock Ford color closing matching this one, if this isn’t a Ford color, that is. Ford stopped making the F-100 after the 1983 model and this is the most hauling capacity that I would ever need. Someone will know if this is a factory Ford color.
There are a couple of dings and two rust spots to fix if you’d want to restore this truck, and being a short-box it may be a worthy project. Although, the seller says that there is no title and they say that because it’s an ex-Military vehicle that they weren’t issued titles as we know them. Hopefully there’s a way to get it licensed otherwise it’ll just be a nice way to hone your restoration skills but you’ll be admiring it while it just sits in your garage. The good news is that as a restoration project, almost every nut, bolt, body panel, interior part, engine part, etc. is available! A few hours with a wire brush and some sanding and the bed will be ready for paint.
There is no photo from the driver’s seat view, for some reason, but from here you can see the one cab corner that you’ll need to repair. The interior, other than needing a new dash top, looks great; although it’s a little faded. You may have to give it a refurb in the form of a couple of spray cans of vinyl dye if you want it to look like new again in there. There is no mention of what transmission is in this truck but I don’t see a clutch pedal so that can only mean that it has an automatic. There is also no AC, of course, being a former Military vehicle. Here is what the interior could look like again after a little elbow grease, other than the AC vents, of course.
The seller mentions that this 3.8L six-cylinder engine runs like a Swiss watch but that it’ll most likely need a fuel pump due to cutting out at full-throttle. I know that feeling. They say that you can barely hear it run with the perfect, original exhaust system. There are only about 13,900 miles on this pickup, supposedly. This is a great-looking pickup to my eyes. Sure, I prefer the older models but for a nice project truck, and one with a short box, this could be a nice one. Do you like these 1980s Ford pickups or do you also prefer the older models?
When I was in the army, all of our vehicles were serviced through GSA. Like most military equipment, it was all about the lowest bidder. Might be a nice rig for someone if it doesn’t go to high and they can get it licenced. The seller should have paperwork from when they bought it from the government auction that will allow it to be titled. If he doesn’t I would be very careful.
When I was in basic training up through the early ’90s, all of the TMP (temporary motor pool) vehicles were that shade of lime green with black lettering on the front doors. Didn’t matter if it was Ford, Chevy or Dodge (imagine a K-car staff car with a general cramped up in that back seat). At the time, I just figured they wanted to keep the GSA vehicles separate from the actual Army machinery. I still remember driving our division sergeant-major’s O.D. green Maverick staff car, however.
Taking another look at this truck, however, I see it came from the TMP of the NJ Army National Guard, which may account for the low mileage.
TMP = Transportation Motor Pool, I think.
For me, this was the beginning of the end for my love of Ford pickups. Compared to their predecessors, these were miserable trucks. If it had the 300 in line 6, that would help. I believe the 3.8 was one of the worst engines offered by Ford, and the electric’s were troublesome. Funny story. I had a friend with a pickup like this, a little fancier, with the 300, and fuel injection, we’re cruising along, he wants to pass a slower car, downshifts, puts his left signal on, and every time the blinker flashed, the engine would cut out. I LMAO. POS. For me, Ford never regained the status of their earlier trucks, and I wouldn’t touch this with a ten foot pole. GM, I feel, made a much better unit, and while rusty, I drive a GMC to this day.
Over the years I have bought about 15 EX-Military trucks, for my business, I stopped buying them some years back, when I realized that most of them although maintained under a schedule, a lot of the maintenance work was just penciled whipped, meaning signed off on and never done, I was told this from a Guy that works for me, he had been assigned to a motor pool while in the Marines, and he said that when the Government went to service contracts it got even worse. The last truck I bought was a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup, it turned out to be a POS, I found it a surplus auction outside of Jefferson City where I had bought others from before, I paid a little of 6 grand for it, it only had 59,000 miles on it so I was thinking good work truck, it had it normal bings and dings but I figured for the price good buy. I was given a copy of the maintenance log, which showed it was serviced every 3500 miles, which included oil change lube, tire rotation, Transmission serviced at 25,000 and 50,000 miles and general routine repairs. So after I got it licensed in Missouri, which was a mess because they forgot to give me the release from the US Government, , well we got it on the road and within about 2000 miles it started knocking, at first I thought it might have been from sitting, so I changed the oil, and added Lucas oil treatment something I run in all my work and personal vehicles. Well it did not improve, so one weekend I brought it home and torn into the engine, which was a 4.6 L V8 engine, normally a tough motor, well when I lifted off the one of the valve cover guess what I found, the perfect copy of the inside of the valve cover, with a ton of crud inside it, the other side was worse. We pulled the motor and broke it down, and it had scored cylinder walls, and the crank looked like I was afraid it would. So I spent a little over $2500 and bought a new engine for it, after we got it back together I decided to have the tranny serviced, the guy that does my tranny work said that it had never been serviced from the day it was new. I rechecked back into the service log and it showed that the tranny had been serviced at 25,000 miles and 50,000 miles, but my tranny guy said it had never been touched!! After the money I put into it turned out to be a OK truck for my business, but it scoured me on buy Federal Surplus vehicles.
Besides you never know who drove them or how they were driven, I know there is a Military recruiter in our area that loves to do burn outs in his Dodge Charger at ever stop light he comes to, yes it has US Government plates on it, I have watched him do it, so it is like anything else you got young kids in cars and trucks that don’t care about the vehicle because they don’t own it.
You’re right. Being a DOD employee most service vehicles get beat up pretty bad and service shops do the bare minimum.
Mike,
Amen to that! To me,this is just another old Ford truck
that might be a good deal for $500 or less.
I think that you could find a “Grandpa” truck that had
been well taken care of,for not much more money.
After 33 years in the Army, I can tell you from personal experience the documentation at all levels of maintenance from organizational to depot could test your integrity on a routine basis. (“If we work on it all night, and the part actually shows up, we could get it off the deadline by 0600 so we’ll call it ‘Up’ for the report.”)
It was a bad day when we had to give up our 1974 Ford four-door staff cars for “New” K-Cars. Congress told the Army to buy them to help Chrysler get out of the jam they were in at the time. We were buying Chrysler XM-1 tanks at the same time. Yes, I have been in the Army that long.
Randy, thank you for your 33 years of service to our Country.
sold for $ 2300.