Ford Enthusiast

[Mike J.]

You didn't say what year the truck is. If it does use R-12 Freon, run the other direction, never plan on putting R-12 in it, or be prepared to convert it to R-134 when you spend the major $$ to repair it. A pound of R-12 Freon will cost you several hundred $$. Here's your delima, the owner is telling you the A/C works when in fact it doesn't. If it "worked", then it wouldn't need freon and would "work". Without a charge of refridgerant, you can't test any of the other components to see if they're ok or even find a leak. If it's been a long time since it ran out of 'freon', then moisture is most likely in the system and several parts will need to be replaced. Most likely the other owner has already had the repairs priced and just about crapped his pants when he found out. I bought a '93 Taurus a few years ago for $900 that appeared to be in excellent condition. The owner had all of the maintenance receipts and records, so I bought it. Within a few weeks/months the water pump went bad, the tranny fell out (literally), the fuel pump went south for the summer, the gas tank filler tube began pouring gas out onto the ground, and the heater core started leaking (probably because the stop leak the previous owner put into the cooling system couldn't plug the hole anymore). On top of all of that, it still had the original spark plug wires in it and one of the spark plug hole threads were stripped out (yet all maintenance had been done by Ford.) I also noticed, finally, that the entire rear end of the car body had been replaced due to a rear end accident. Obviously some of the maintenance records had been 'lost'. Well, after $2500 in repairs and before the freezing cold R-12 A/C could quit on me, I traded it in for $900, just to be rid of it. Most likely, the previous owner's mechanic warned them about all of these problems and told them to dump the car ASAP. Interesting that they didn't trade it in for the NEW Range Rover that was in their driveway. What's my point? Some times it's cheaper for an owner to get rid of a car than repair it.