'57 Ranchero at $10K. Advice please!

She (the Ranchero) is commuting me around El Paso flawlessly, though she is a gas hog, even with my light touch on the accelerator and staying
at 55 on the highway. The defroster switch and heater switch were frozen, and I was wondering how much that was going to cost me, so on a hunch
I got this stuff like WD40 with lithium grease, and a little blind squirt into the mech and they work just fine now. Found a frozen stop cock that runs
into the hose for the heater core, and a quick spritz freed that up as well, and I shut off the hot water supply to the core. The corner windows don't angle
effectively to give one a draft of air, so it is pretty warm in the cabin. I will be looking into one of those re-pop swamp cooler things that hang off the window.
Later this week hope to drop it off at the body shop and have that ugly dent in the left rear quarter panel taken out.

Another interesting development is how often I get smiles and waves from people seeing her tooling along. Not used to that, so have to ready with a nod and a smile.

 

Wholesale on this bird seems to be right around 7K on the high end, with the body damage. Some other people have said that with a proper refit of the upholstery and repair of the fender damage, it could fetch some decent coin. That is interesting, but what it's "worth" and what one can get are often two very different numbers. I'm not in a rush to flip it, but if someone made me an offer that would give a little profit, I might let it go so I can focus on my '60 Valiant, which was in pretty rough shape when I got it. It's a Slant 6 with a toilet seat faux spare tire cover on the trunk, AKA "toad back."

 

Fortunately, the lack of amenities like power steering and air conditioning have muted her interest in it! She is saving to purchase some modern day muscle car, but to me, all these new cars, and trucks, all looked like they got excreted from the same wind tunnel. One thing for sure, I don't have trouble locating it in a crowded parking lot.

Unlike modern autos, this truck tells me how to drive it, not the other way around. I say, "go left" or "stop" and she replies, "OK, follow me."

 

You might be right, but so far it's hanging together. Upper limit of wholesale might fetch 7K to a motivated investor, but doubt that I could have sealed the deal for less than 9 1/2. No less, point taken: all the glitters is not gold.

 

Don't worry about naysayers. An older vehicle's value is totally subjective.

 

Well, everything was going just dandy, and without warning the transmission failed while pulling to a stop. Nothing dramatic, it just failed to engage going forward, except at a creep that enabled me to get a gas station a hundred yards distant. From there the transmission dipstick was dry, at idle, and a quart was added, and this provided a forward motion for another mile, and then it just dropped out again. Not wishing to push my luck any further I had her towed to a transmission shop that will work on vintage cars a mile away. Oddly, reverse worked fine, and if I could have backed it up for a few miles it probably would have made the trip.

Eyeballing the linkage, which is not hard to do, everything appeared connected. She had been leaking a little from the previous day, but I put it to the back of my mind. I may end up paying dearly for my insouciance.

 

Well, Clark is right. The transmission, which was supposedly rebuilt, is toast. And to make things more interesting, it is a two speed automatic, something I didn't know. I see someone is selling a two speed on the parts Forum, we'll see how that pans out.

 

Just kind of curious, what did the dipstick read after you put 1 quart of fluid in it? Strange that it was dry and only needed 1 quart to show full? Was the transmission leaking that bad? If you tried to drive it with not enough fluid in it, it WILL cook for sure.

 

The dipstick had a little tip of fluid after the tranny failed. In embossed lettering it says, "add 3/4 quart when at idle." So I dumped the whole quart in, thinking I'd run it dry, and after that it came up to a little over the fill line, at idle. I am guessing it sprung a leak and I ran it dry. Stupid me for not checking the transmission fluid more often. Going pay for my laziness now.