Here's where we're at y'all, I'm not happy unless I have a project and when you start at the bottom it's all uphill so with that in mind I set out to buy the cheapest complete (not rusted, wrecked or half parted-out) base model I could find. Only real sticking points were it had to be automatic and it needed A/C.. pretty much anything else was fair game.

This candidate was $500 with 2 wheel drive, v6, auto and air. And a hard tonneau which is nice. It's complete and it has only minimal surface rust. Started life in Texas for 2 years then Colorado for 12 more.. then didn't have any registrations until 2022 and was abandoned in 2024. I bought it from a tow truck operator who had completed the abandoned title paperwork.

263k miles, engine does actually start right up but it knocks real bad. We'll see what's up with that, I'm fully prepared to buy a new motor or maybe do an interesting swap.







Interior is gross... it's got the vinyl floor and cloth seats, it clearly was shut all winter long with water because the seats all grew mold. Smells like mold, stale cigarettes, cologne and sweat. Cloth arm rest on the center console is shiny with grease and who knows what.

 

To get the plans on paper.. er.. pixels, I've never done a street truck before, never lowered any car or truck before. I'm not sure if I'll lower this or not but it's on the table. I just want to turn this $500 abandoned heap into something adequately clean and comfortable and reliable that I or the wife can run errands with and not worry about. A brand new base model F150 like this is 40 grand so I can do quite a lot of rehabilitation work on this thing and still be ahead of that price.

First step is to de-gross the interior. I pulled the seats and floor & alternated among scrub brushes with laundry soap, the garden hose, rags and shop vac. It ended up pretty nice.



Whole interior removed



Drying

More drying

Unfortunately I had my hands full and didn't take pictures of it, but I filled my car washing foam cannon with laundry detergent and used the pressure washer and foam cannon to just absolutely bury the floor and all the seats in Arm & Hammer Oxy Clean snow, let it marinate a little while and then used the oscillating pressure tip to blast it all away and rinse through as much brown water and grit as would come out. Then I used a shampoo vac to draw out as much water as I could from the upholstery and left it in my garage with a fan blowing at it to dry out. Humidity's fairly low here so it will dry out before fungus or rust begins. Tomorrow I'll leave it out in the bright springtime sun for a few hours to finish drying.

That's where we are so far, I'm certain it will be much, much less stinky once I put it all back in!

 

Looks pretty decent for $500. My truck has the vinyl floor, and seats. I pulled the sills on my truck.....nasty is a nice way of putting it......

The floor looks clean/solid on this truck. I would leave the suspension stock. Then you won't worry about steep driveways and bottoming out etc.

What do the Mustangs have in them?

 

The funny thing is there are lots of 10th gen F150's to choose from in that $200-1000 range, at least around here. Some of 'em even move under their own power. I was considering a $700 98 basically identical to this one but a prettier color (green) .. seller seemed motivated too but that one only had ABS in back, had drum brakes in back., three doors instead of four and I've read that there were an assortment of other minor refinements with each model year even in the base trim trucks. Might as well start with the best, worst one.

Yeah.. it was real nasty like you said down in the sills and under the back seat. Yuck! My immune system's in for a workout.

I haven't got to the suspension at all yet.. first priority was clean the interior, next I'll clean under the hood and under the chassis.. haven't really been under there to inspect anything apart from a cursory glance to make sure it's not rusted out or missing anything or held together with lumber and baling wire. Never even asked the seller to crank it over so I have no idea how it drives - I started the engine for 15 seconds once it was in my driveway and it does run and does make a racket.




It's a bit dirty under there but not at all nightmare dirty. I'll wash it real well top to bottom because I don't like working on dirty engines and it's just so much easier to accomplish diagnostics and repairs when it's clean. Shops burning expensive time don't get that luxury.

I got to thinking I might lower it one inch at both ends, I have a 4x4 Ram pickup for when weather or task calls for it but that thing's thirsty and my wife doesn't climb up in it as easy as she used to. Since this truck project is half for my own amusement (gotta stay busy on things that aren't depressing, you know?) I also want to try something I've never done before and lowering definitely meets that definition. I don't think I'd enjoy it dropped all the way to the ground but an inch seems pretty easy to accomplish & might help with the fuel consumption and with my wife's ease of entry/exit. We'll see - I'll get it driving and stopping right first then worry about the suspension whether stock refresh or massaged a little.



The tonnau needs a new lock and it's missing one of the gas supports, the other one is long past dead. Also its clear coat is flaking bad so I'll probably repaint that some day. I haven't quite got the hang of painting but since this truck's a zero-pressure project I can mess it up and live with myself.

The 94 Mustang is a 302HO with Cobra intake manifold, high ratio rockers, 24lb injectors, 70mm throttle body. Ford Performance headers, high flow catted midpipe & glasspacks. Manual trans, Cobra brakes, rear seat delete, 250k miles, 3.08 gears, MS3 ECU & speed density conversion with MAF delete and dual widebands. I was aiming for lively & analog here not any particular horsepower number. Suspension's all new parts but stock, just KYB monotubes. That was another rescue like this F150, originally just a tired stock GT with a lot of miles and in need of all the deferred maintenance.

The 02 is my wife's, 3.8 with Pacesetter headers, Magnaflow dual outlet on the stock Y midpipe. 3.55 gears, trac-lock, Cobra rear sway, Bilsteins, big brakes, stock otherwise. She bought it about 12 years ago and daily'd it until her health gave out and now it just kinda sits there collecting dust and waiting for both of us to die so someone can barn find it.

 

supercharged 5.4 swap would be what I'd do

 

I'm not going to absolutely rule out a supercharged 5.4.. but the lower hanging fruit is a used 302 I'm not in the right tax bracket for bigger ambitions.

If I discover the "rod knock" on this engine is really just a loose rocker I won't even have to pull the engine and that's by far the lowest hanging fruit.

 

What a great canvas to start out with. I'd love to find something like that here.

 

It's not much, the underpadding of the vinyl floor is still drying in the sun (needed a 2nd wash) but I had some spare sound deadener left over from another car so I put all of it around the cab wherever the sheet metal kept resonating after rapping it with my knuckles. Obviously I won't notice a difference because I never drove the truck to begin with but now's the best possible time to install all that.

 

Interior's all back in.. I know it's far from perfect but it's at least possible to sit in there without picking up a disease now. The center console armrest before/after pics tell the whole story now multiply that by the whole rest of the cab and under the seats, under the door sill trim and under the vinyl floor... pressure washer really earned its keep yesterday!

Later once I have a good trajectory on the rest of the truck I aim to revisit the interior, fix the rips in the driver seat or keep an eye open for a part-out with a good seat. This is good enough for now to get started under the hood.

 

I've been trying to find a 94 F250 IDI turbo and your thread here is a nice reminder that maybe we can get some of the older stuff running nicely with the right TLC.

Looking forward to see how it goes for you.

Cheers, Pete