I was looking for a pickup to haul stuff and to get my own self to unsafe but picturesque locations away from paved roads, and my father told me that his sister, to whom he had sold his truck five years prior, wanted to sell it as she had just bought a brand new econobox. The thing had been sitting in her yard for a few weeks after it started to overheat, so I got to her place with a new thermostat, installed it, filled the coolant and drove away 400 $ poorer but with a shiny new toy.
The thing is a '89 Pioneer 4.0L 4WD with manual shift (and a bonus Hurst pistol-grip knob too !) and 255000 kms on the clock :
It was originally red on gray, but was repainted deep green and fitted with a home-made rear bumper. The clear coat has started to peel away, so I will probably do a rattlecan paint job in matte black over the old paint and leave it at that, there is no rust to speak of and most of the dings are already puttied anyway.
Mechanically everything is sound, except it needs a new distributor and the tail pipe is simply a decoration.
The real mess is the interior, the seals dried off around the windshield and the rear window, and water dripped inside for quite a while. The bench smells awful and the carpets are in poor shape. So for the moment, the idea is to get the damn thing running nice and clean, change the windshield (it's so cracked it's a joke...) and seal the rear window, replace the upholstery, bolt in a nice bench and scare the neighbors.
Then we'll talk about having it go faster, stronger, higher...
Cheers !