1973 Ford F-100, Parked for 25 Years, Is Dying To Drive Home - Can It Really Do It?

Ford came up with the F-100 back in 1948. It was just a year after Henry Ford had passed away when it rolled off the production line. Little did Ford know back then that the F-100 was going to be the first chapter of a success story. Later on, the F-Series became America's best-selling pickup truck. It is a title that has been glued to the nameplate for the past 47 years.

The automaker kept the F-100 nameplate going until 1983, over seven generations. What the Over Spray Garage found in disgrace is a 1973 pickup truck, but since it rocks round headlights, it looks like a fifth, not a sixth-generation model. The fifth was larger than the fourth in every direction, and it was more comfortable. It was, however, during the sixth-generation run when Ford came up with the now-super-popular F-150.

The Over Spray Garage team found the baby blue Ford F-100 sitting in a yard, looking like it had no chance to move on its own ever again. But they are not the kind to take a look at a vehicle and give up. They spent ages trying to make it run and drive again.

The car is covered in rust, dust, leaves, and whatever rodents have left behind over the years, while the driver's side window is about to drop. Onboard, they find sunglasses, probably from the 1970s, which are not even see-through anymore.

They don’t have any keys, so they will have to figure out a way to open the trunk. They manage to pop the rear window up but have to kick the tailgate from inside to open it. They are afraid not to find snakes in there. They find, however, wooden boxes and a spare tire.

Plastic bottles of power steering fluid and brake fluid leak after all these years spent in the trunk. There is also a hack in there, just in case they would need to dig a hole in the ground instead of reviving the F-100.

The edges of the body panels are covered in rust, and the paint peeled off in some areas, revealing what might actually be the paint the truck rolled off the production line with.

The electrical wires are mixed up like spaghetti and they find fuses on the floor of the car. To be able to have power in the truck, they took the ignition cylinder from their own and put it in the F-100.

They also fix the electrical fusible link that they destroyed in a previous episode, put gas in the tank, and expect the Ford to come back to life. Easier said than done, though. Every time they try to fire it up, they fail. Until they don’t.

The engine finally roars back to life, and they can hardly believe that, after all that effort, it finally worked just when they expected it less. Surprisingly, the power steering is still functional.

The tires are buried in the soil and have gone flat. They try to inflate them with an air compressor, but they are not going to hold the air in. They do have a spare tire, though.

Every F-100 was equipped from the factory with a screw jack. After all these years, it might finally turn out to be useful. All they need to do is take the pressure off the bead of the rear tires. But the lug nuts are stuck, so they try to heat them, oil them, and unscrew them. This time, the wheel comes off.

But while they try to find a solution for the front tire, the rear tires go flat again. So they start all over again and inflate them. After this, they start the engine, and the truck moves for the first time in 25 years. But it doesn't have any brakes at all. This means that it won't be easy to take it off the grass and into the driveway up the path.

But they manage to do it. Running and driving, the truck is good to go. Well, it is good to go up on a platform because it would be a public danger on the road. It has no brakes, the windshield went matte, and the truck drives in slow motion, not to mention it doesn't have insurance.

"Let's just put it in a barn and do a barn find video in like ten years from now," they joke once they run out of gas and the F-100 goes still. Hopefully, it won't take another 25 years before it drives again.