Buy it or walk away

For the money, I would think you could hardly go wrong. Heck you could sell the engine on eBay for 1500, tranny for couple hundred. Rears for 1000, and be money ahead. And for farm use, how many miles are you putting on in a year?

 

for 3 grand no brainer get it. now if he was asking 30 grand don't walk away---- RUN AWAY!

 

Like rbr said, how could you go wrong. Buying an old worn truck is always a crap shoot, but as a mechanic you should be able to get a pretty good feel for how healthy the engine is between sound, power, oil pressure, blowby and exhaust. Even if you have to put a few thou into it, you still have a cheap truck. As long as you can do the work, you're only buying the parts. I wouldn't give it a second thought myself. Driver er home! (This opinion is based strictly on what you said about using it as a farm truck, not to go into commercial hauling), that is a different can of worms. P.S. back in 1977 I bought a 1966 IHC 220 V-liner gravel truck for $1500. Got a grain box put on it for another $1000 and for 2500 total I had myself a good old farm truck. Same idea, just for farm use, it's commercial hauling days were over, but for the farm, it worked fine.

 

Part out and scrap for higher than 3k - Worst case scenario.

Depends on your budget and time. Just my opinion.

 

Watch the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves.

 

For what it's worth, if that truck was within 500 miles of me, I'd buy it without even seeing it. It's worth nearly that just in scrap.