... than seeing a Craigslist ad that the local pick-n-pull yard has a 70 Mav, it is 72 degrees, and you get to the yard, big toolbox in hand, and finally hunt it down in a sea of 1990s Fords. Nice day! The only bummer was the idiot that stopped by, gave the car a passing glance while I was wrenching away, and then proceeded to close the trunk,... locking it. He and his friend were a row away as I walked to the back of the car to check out his handiwork ... yep, locked ... I yelled back at him "THANKS!" in a manner that should have been followed by "you @$$hole" ... "Sorry" replied in broken English tempered my anger a bit, but I still proceeded to call him anything but good until I had the trunk open again. If the trunk lid didn't have a bit of rot on one side, I would have removed the rear seat and done the screwdriver trick on the latch. It was much more gratifying to use a prybar, and beat it into submission for the next 10 minutes... I was still trying to be a bit delicate with it, or that would have happened a lot quicker. This was definitely an early car ... gas tank trunk floor and ignition key not in the steering column (totally missing ... ). I did get a bunch of stuff off of it. Nice way to start the New Year! Got the tag off of the rad support too. Going to try to decode it next.
Going by info in this thread ... http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=26255&highlight=decode+1970+tag it looks like this car was built June 16, 1969.... Easily the earliest Mav I have ever messed with. The whole tag reads 0716 37 16F T399728 62A 45 UP INTER LO S GOLD Y NUG The car was originally gold, and the interior looked like Grey Gold (like my 72) but maybe they called it Nugget in 70. It was 6 cylinder, PS, auto, no air. It was really cool to deal with an early car, even though it doesn't look like it was anything really special. Makes you wonder if the owners had a clue ...
ive had a few "run-ins" at our pull-a-part.. i was underneath a 90's bronco2 that someone managed to squeeze a 302 and aod in. while admiring the handiwork on the transmission crossmember, me and my buddie heard some voices close by. then wee noticed couple guys around our cart! i got out from under the truck only to see one of them had a steering wheel in his hand that my buddie got off another truck. i told him there wouldnt be any trouble is he just put it back. the guy began arguing with me that it was his and he pulled it from another truck...before i could knock him out with the large cresent wrench in my hand, my buddie told me to just let him have it. still i didnt want to let go of the thing at this point but my conscience told me to. so when we checked out, i gave the manager a good description of them and told them the whole scenario. He said, dont worry guy you'll never have to worry about them again.. im banning them from here for life!!! so i got my satisfaction!!
Are you sure the number is 399728? That high of a number being built in June of 69 doesn't jive with any other 69.5's I've seen. My '69.5 was built July 17, 1969 and is 167193.
Hmmm ... this tag is very legible. Could it be June 16 of 1970? If it was, would it still have had the key in the dash and not the column?
Do we know where 69.5s were manufactured? The tag that was scanned in the other post seems to have a similar numbering scheme as this one. Maybe different plants were handling the numbers for these differently ... one plant starting 1970 production at 100001 and another plant carrying on with 1969 Ford numbers as an extension of what was made there?
