After spending the better part of its life sitting in an open field, this truck is ready to run once more!
Classic American pickup trucks are among the most popular vehicles in modern automotive enthusiast culture because of their incredible abundance, great styling, and high horsepower V8s. Without a doubt, these things were made to be the best overall utility vehicles money could buy with a strong focus on cheap power. You can find these trucks practically anywhere, especially if you live in the south, where manual labor is a massive part of the economy. So, of course, the ones that you'll see will almost always be work trucks unless you happened to see that one video about the guy who kept his truck garage kept for 42 years. This thing was definitely not kept in a garage or a fancy warehouse. Instead, it has been sitting for decades, and now a couple of automotive enthusiasts have tasked themselves with getting the old girl up and running once again.
Check out a Hellcat swapped Scout here.
The main focus for these guys is what's under the hood, but there is a significant issue in seeing the engine with their own eyes. Covering the top of this truck from bumper to shining bumper is a thick layer of dirt, rust, and pine straw. Atop the hood, you will find a large nest made by some unknown animal, perhaps a horsepower-loving snake or bird. Because this is a Ford, we wouldn't be surprised if a Cobra had nested itself in the engine bay at one point or another. The future was looking bleak for this forgotten F100 until a miracle happened. After hours of crawling through and dismantling the nest, the guys found a whopping V8 engine.
After weeks of wrenching on this disheveled piece of automotive truck history, this dynamic duo finally managed to get it up and running despite nearly every element of the engine being unusable or dangerously close to malfunction. After partially restoring this vehicle back to running condition, one of the mechanics decided to take it for a test drive to the shop just a few hundred meters away. Without any brakes and a steering system that had been sitting for the better part of half a century, the truck performed surprisingly well. The weirdest thing about this project is that the vehicle is stuck in third gear except for when put into reverse for whatever reason. Whether we get to see this classic go from zero to hero in a complete restoration or not, this is still a fantastic project and a great learning experience for just what you might expect out of a car that's been sitting for that long.
