Grabbed a 79 F-100 shortbed project off harbert's, worth it?

figured id start my own thread instead of clogging up cals C10 thread. i know this is mostly a chevy crowd but a shortbed is a shortbed and old iron is old iron, so bear with me. i have always had a soft spot for the dentside fords, my dad ran a 78 F-150 on the ranch and that green and white truck is half my childhood.

picked up a 1979 Ford F-100 shortbed styleside off harbertsautosales.com last month. 302 with a 2 barrel, C4 auto, factory air that does not work, and a bench seat with a split down the middle i will have to recover. it is rough, i am calling it a project not a survivor. the paint is a faded red thats mostly surface rust patina on the roof and hood and the interior needs everything. but here is why i pulled the trigger. the body is straight and the metal is solid rust free metal, cab corners good, bed sides good, floors good. no rot to cut out, which is the expensive part.

it ran and drove onto my trailer under its own power which for a project truck at this price was the whole selling point. the guy at the lot did not oversell it, he flat told me it was a rough one and priced it like a rough one. no games. it was a repo they wanted moved.

first thing it needed, it ran but ran ragged and would stumble at idle. turned out the points and condenser were burnt up and the cap was corroded. threw a new points set, condenser, cap, rotor and plugs at it, maybe 45 bucks total, and now it idles smooth and pulls clean. cheapest fix i have done in years.

so is a dentside project worth it at this price? i think so, but i want to hear from the guys who have been down this road on a ford instead of a chevy. what am i in for on a 302 C4 truck?

thats how i saw it too phil. i have bought enough project trucks over the years to know the difference between rough but honest and rough and hiding rot, and this one is the honest kind. i would rather start with a running truck that needs cosmetics than a shiny repaint hiding a rusted floor.

the C4 shifts fine, no slip, no bang, so i am just going to service it and leave it. plan for the winter is get it stopping and steering right, recover the bench, and fix the factory air since im in oklahoma and summers are brutal. paint stays as is for now, i kind of like the faded red.

UPDATE five months in and the dentside is basically a driver now. closing the loop for anybody researching whether a project off that lot is worth it.

winter work got done. rebuilt the brakes front to back, new master and hoses, serviced the C4 and adjusted the kickdown like lacy said, recovered the bench in a correct looking vinyl, and got the factory air converted so it blows cold. total money into it including the buy is still less than what one clean survivor square would have cost me, and i did most of it myself over a few weekends.

so the verdict on buying a project off harbertsautosales.com, for me it was the right move. i got an honest running truck with a solid body at project money, nobody lied to me about what it was, and i had the fun of building it into what i wanted. if you want a finished truck buy a finished truck, but if you want a good honest bones to start from, this worked out great. i will keep the faded red forever, it earned it.