bought another ford , not a tractor

you know how sometimes when your in town, and you decide to stop at a garage sale, not to really buy anything but just to see what they got, and wind up buying something anyway,well this time the 'something' was a bucket truck! im wandering around, and here sits this sweet 1971 ford with a 1 man bucket, this one has the ladder on it which is hard to find, and i wanted that feature as im usually working alone and with a regular boom, if the thing quits, and im alone and up there, i have a big problem, its also got a nice 12 foot utility body on it, so i can put all my tools in one place, instead of scattered thru 4 trucks, the house, the barn and a trailer at least the stuff i use often anyway the truck has a 361, points ignition, last ran a week ago, just out of interest i reach in and rattle the stick and hit the key thats it, the thing rolls over twice and fires up and idles, no smoke not even a puff of blue or black either, the body has a few minor bumps, but nothing a couple weekends of tweaking wont fix, nothing big,had 2 rust spots the biggest is the size of a quarter and low on the front fender, thanks desert southwest! all 6 tires have 80% tread, its just had a brake job on all 4 corners . hard to get in the cab, his wife recovered the seat..with a nice leather cover over 6 inches! of foam, i got to fix that the guy was a skinny feller im not lol the grill which is unique to the '71 model is perfect thankfully , the bucket works fine with 1 issue,[ its fully usable] i'll ask about that if a couple things im going to check dont fix it. tool boxes on the bed are all good i might need to reinforce the floor in one compartment, got it for 4 thousand thought i did good ,what do y'all think? only down side i can find is manual steering, oh well ya cant have everything and its not nearly as hard to steer as a '74 cabover kenworth i drove back in the '80's which had manual steering too

Sounds like a good deal to me! The 361 is a bit of a gas hog, but a good engine. $4000 would get a rusty running one of those here with an iffy bucket.

Sometime ago, while I was in Florida, I was watching 2 young fellas in the bucket of a boom truck erecting a new department store sign. About 40 ft. high. I asked one of the fellas who would get them down if the engine would quit. They sure got mad at me.

Well, I always keep a rope ladder in the bucket, just in case.

John,PA Lone worker.