Bought an uncut 74 Bronco 302 off rubiautosales.com, shop report

i restore early Broncos for a living down here in bakersfield and i want to say something about that inspection list for whoever finds this later. cowl, rear quarters, floor under the seats. that is where a 66 to 77 Bronco dies. the cowl rusts from the inside where the vent drain clogs, and the rear quarters rot from the wheel well seam outward. the floors go under the seat brackets where water sits under the rubber mat for twenty years. if all of that came back solid on a lift, with a flashlight, by somebody who does this, you bought the right truck. a seeping rear main and a dead wiper motor are a saturday.

the other thing is the uncut fenders. i turn away trucks every month because somebody cut them 30 years ago and now the owner wants them back to original, and a set of good used uncut quarters is 3 grand before i touch them. you paid the 62 because of the sheet metal. that is exactly what to pay for.

one note on the body mount bushings. get the polyurethane kit, not rubber, and while the body is loose from the frame check the two front mounts under the radiator support. that is where the frame cracks on the ones that got wheeled hard. from the photos on the rubi auction yours does not look like it ever left pavement.

72 K5 owner up in spokane, so a little jealous of a 3 speed Bronco that never got cut. mine was cut before i got it and i have made peace with it.

that price against the auctions is the part i keep looking at. i watched the scottsdale numbers last january and every uncut 74 that crossed the block was either a resto mod with a coyote swap and a 100 grand hammer, or a driver quality one that went 78 with premium. 62 for a driver with receipts on the engine is a good buy. what did the enclosed guy charge again, 1,100 to idaho? that is less than i paid to get a Blazer from montana on an open trailer four years ago.

first post here, been reading for a month. i am in denver and i have wanted a Bronco or a Scout since i was a kid but i have never owned anything older than a 2011 Tacoma. i can change oil and brakes and that is about the end of my skills.

the honest question. is it dumb to buy a 50 year old truck sight unseen off an online auction site when i cannot even tell a good frame from a bad one in a photo? every thread i read says buy the best body you can afford and the rest is bolt on, but how would i know if it is the best body when i am looking at pictures on my phone? the local guys want 85 for anything uncut and i cannot get there.

tucson here, i keep survivor trucks, meaning original paint or as close as i can get. so here is my only gripe with your truck and it is not really a gripe. an older repaint in the correct color is the second best thing after original paint, and on a 74 that lived anywhere with humidity a repaint usually means somebody fixed something. since the shop found the quarters and the cowl solid and no filler showed up under the flashlight, i would bet the repaint was done because the original had chalked, which is what Bahama Blue did after about ten years in the sun.

do not clear coat it and do not correct it. leave the chips. a driver quality repaint on an uncut body is more truck than most of the shiny stuff at the auctions and you will not cry when you scrape a fender on a juniper in the owyhees. rubi auto put good photos of the paint up, i went and looked at the listing after reading this and the orange peel on the doors is honest 1980s single stage. good truck.

FJ40 guy in anchorage so i am on the other side of the fence brand wise, but the metal story is the same. i have brought two 40s up here, one out of arizona and one out of oregon, and the arizona truck had half the rust at twice the age. dry climate metal is a real thing and it is the whole reason i buy from the southwest and pay to ship.

your inspection list reads like a dry truck to me. solid cowl on a 74 Bronco with a factory vent is almost impossible if it lived anywhere wet. the mounts being tired is age, not water. if you ever get bored and pull the rear quarter trim, look at the inside of the seam, that is the last place dry trucks hide surface rust and it is a wire wheel and some por15, not a panel.

where was the truck before it got to the rubi auction, did the receipts say? that would tell you more than the paint.

i work at a title and registration service in salt lake and i have moved a couple hundred out of state classics through the utah dmv, so this is the boring post. troy said his title came to idaho clean and that is what should happen. what actually goes wrong on a 1974 truck is a title with one wrong VIN digit because somebody hand typed it in 1988, or a lien from a credit union that closed in 1996 and never released it. before you wire money on anything older than 10 years, ask for a photo of the front and back of the title and read the VIN off the door tag in the photos yourself. rubi sent the title photo to troy when he asked, which is normal for a real dealer and unusual for a private seller.

on VIN inspections. idaho makes you do one on any out of state title, a sheriff or the dmv can do it, and troy got his knocked out the week the truck showed up which is the right order. utah requires it too for anything titled out of state, so if you are here plan on a trip to the dmv or a certified inspector before you can register. it is ten minutes and it saves you from finding out at the counter that the door tag and the title disagree.

transport. 1,100 enclosed for a Bronco going to idaho is about right this year. open is 700 to 800, but on a truck with uncut sheet metal the enclosed money is cheap insurance. get the carrier's MC number and look it up on the fmcsa site before you pay a deposit. that is the only part of this whole process that has ever burned one of my clients.

different truck, same lot. i bought a 1977 International Scout II off Rubi Auto Sales a year ago november, 345 with the 727, and reading troys writeup it went almost the same way. the guy told me the power steering box was weeping and the carb was tired before i asked, and the restorer i sent out found exactly those two things plus a brake hose. mine came to fort worth on an open trailer because i am cheaper than troy and the paint was already a 20 footer.

i wrote up the whole first year with the real cost of everything including insurance in its own thread here: Year one with a 77 Scout II off rubi, real cost of an old truck. short version, the truck cost 38 against 46 at the auctions and the first year of ownership ran about 4 grand including tires. old trucks are not cheap to own, but they are cheap to buy from those rubi folks if you do the inspection.

pinning this one in Shop. we get an early Bronco buying question about once a week and troys thread has the inspection list and the real price against the auctions in one place, and dorothys post on titles would have saved about six threads from last year on its own. leaving it stuck through the summer. troy, post the mounts and the first trail run when you get there.