Some idiot destroyed my truck - help me rebuild it better than ever?

[HeavyAsAChevy]

I bent the passenger wheel well, fender, hood, core support, grill, and headlights. Thankfully the radiator was only millimeters from death

 

[SkyHighColorado]

I highly doubt that’s bent. These frames are strong. You have plenty of alignment adjustability to compensate and get it driving straight. Just junk yard it back together. I had to bend my front lower crossmember back straight with map gas and a bottle Jack lol. I was ridiculed by all the “experts” but my truck is perfectly fine and still chugging along at 356k.

 

[SUBURBAN5]

I bent the passenger wheel well, fender, hood, core support, grill, and headlights. Thankfully the radiator was only millimeters from death

Sounds like my accident except the driver side

 

[RedneckWithPaychecks]

In 2007, I had a 97 Ford F-150 Mark III pacakge 4x4 (my last ford truck, never hated it but never liked it either.) and I was in a rear end collision with it. I got a flat tire and was off the road, lady was off the road hit the driver side rear. What sucked was that it took me about a year to find a new box-side for the truck, the mark iii package had custom paintwork that I had to find a replacement for.

At that time I was experimenting with Fords, had that truck and a Ford Explorer (mentioned somewhere on the forum), my last ford was an Escape (I escaped the ownership of that). Sold the truck to my brother-in-law, he still uses it in the summer for camping. Might buy it back when he sells it, who knows.

I recommend finding a parts truck, you might even get some upgrade parts if you do.

 

[Frank Enstein]

Heaven help the poor schmuck that wrecks Frank for me. If they survive the accident they won't survive the accident.

Frank is my LAST truck.

 

[autoteleology]

Thank you for the help, everyone

Can someone point me towards information as to what bulbs on this vehicle are CK or standard? Driving a C/K makes this information impossible to search for independently, for obvious reasons.

Like others have said, anything metal and body panel related, go to a junk yard and buy the whole front clip.

As for the frame you wont know if its bent until your start putting new parts on it and the gaps dont line up. Do not go with aftermarket parts for the bumper brackets.

That sounds like a good idea, parts on car-part.com are way cheaper than I would have expected ($100 for a hood that needs some paint? $35 for great condition seat mounts and tracks?) that I might as well just grab the whole unit to make sure everything lines up should I need to.

Good info, will make sure to grab some bumper supports from a yard and not from rockauto or wherever.

Even at a salvage yard you have to check sheet metal and parts. Not uncommon for one in the salvage yard to already have aftermarket parts on it.

If your dealing with the salvage re-certification process hang on to every reciept. It's different in every state but you might need to prove where the parts came from if you retained what might be now considered a "salvage vehicle".

Very good points. Making sure you have OEM stuff seems very important for anything where the metal composition matters, since it's all you can trust. I'm also a good record keeper, so I plan on keeping the receipts for everything as I always do.

And a word of advice for all who read this: you need to have uninsured motorist coverage on your insurance! Most of the wrecks my folks were in-- none their fault-- that's the only way we got paid anything. So many people in greater Houston area do not have financial liability ( insurance) on themselves or their vehicle ( even though basic liability coverage is required by state law, and you have to show proof of insurance to get your vehicles registered/licensed).

Absolutely carry uninsured/under insured coverage plus higher property/personal damage. Arizona recently raised the minimum coverage to 25/50 ($25,000/$50,000) bodily/total and $25000/$50,000 property - IT'S NOT ENOUGH! We have been carrying 100/300, 100/300 UM and UIM plus $5000 medical and $50/day car rental with $1500 max (plus Collision) on all our cars.

I had great insurance at the time of the accident. I got 4K and I didn't have to fight at all, though I probably should have to get some extra money. I have 300K/100K injury, 100K property, 100k medical, comprehensive w/ $250 deductible, and $300K/100K uninsured, for like... $40 a month, after I individually weighed out everything on the value of my policy when I bought it.

When I wrecked mine I went on Craigslist and found a parts truck and got everything I needed from it.

I recommend finding a parts truck, you might even get some upgrade parts if you do.

Wish I could, but I don't have the space for that.

Also, just to be clear, I'm only trying to make sure I am getting good parts for this project. I'm not doing the work, my truck is three hours away from me with friends who do this stuff for a living because they want to help me out. Anything they do is going to be way better than whatever I'd accomplish, because this is their profession, and my skills and passions primarily lie in other fields of expertise - I just want to run everything by people who know way more about the details of my project specifically than a general mechanic or bodyworker.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

Thank you for the help, everyone

Can someone point me towards information as to what bulbs on this vehicle are CK or standard? Driving a C/K makes this information impossible to search for independently, for obvious reasons.



That sounds like a good idea, parts on car-part.com are way cheaper than I would have expected ($100 for a hood that needs some paint? $35 for great condition seat mounts and tracks?) that I might as well just grab the whole unit to make sure everything lines up should I need to.

Good info, will make sure to grab some bumper supports from a yard and not from rockauto or wherever.



Very good points. Making sure you have OEM stuff seems very important for anything where the metal composition matters, since it's all you can trust. I'm also a good record keeper, so I plan on keeping the receipts for everything as I always do.




I had great insurance at the time of the accident. I got 4K and I didn't have to fight at all, though I probably should have to get some extra money. I have 300K/100K injury, 100K property, 100k medical, comprehensive w/ $250 deductible, and $300K/100K uninsured, for like... $40 a month, after I individually weighed out everything on the value of my policy when I bought it.




Wish I could, but I don't have the space for that.

Also, just to be clear, I'm only trying to make sure I am getting good parts for this project. I'm not doing the work, my truck is three hours away from me with friends who do this stuff for a living because they want to help me out. Anything they do is going to be way better than whatever I'd accomplish, because this is their profession, and my skills and passions primarily lie in other fields of expertise - I just want to run everything by people who know way more about the details of my project specifically than a general mechanic or bodyworker.

Do the friends have space for a parts truck? That would still be the cheapest way to get everything you need....
On these trucks,C denotes 2wd and K denotes 4wd.

 

[RedneckWithPaychecks]

Also, just to be clear, I'm only trying to make sure I am getting good parts for this project. I'm not doing the work, my truck is three hours away from me with friends who do this stuff for a living because they want to help me out. Anything they do is going to be way better than whatever I'd accomplish, because this is their profession, and my skills and passions primarily lie in other fields of expertise - I just want to run everything by people who know way more about the details of my project specifically than a general mechanic or bodyworker.

I believe that the best parts will be OEM, It is good to have some others do the work. Rebuilding that ford took lots of swearing, lots of time i really didnt have, lots of trips to the junkyard, and lots of money I did have. Its a little hard to find all of the parts in the junkyard that aren't rough, even in Arizona where people say there isn't rust, theres the sun all year!

 

[autoteleology]

I believe that the best parts will be OEM, It is good to have some others do the work. Rebuilding that ford took lots of swearing, lots of time i really didnt have, lots of trips to the junkyard, and lots of money I did have. Its a little hard to find all of the parts in the junkyard that aren't rough, even in Arizona where people say there isn't rust, theres the sun all year!

That is exactly my position. I have quite a bit of money and not a lot of time, I would rather focus on coming up with something worth rebuilding, something only I can do because it's my truck, and then have someone talented and experienced enough to make it a reality do the work, which is something lots of people can do, and a group that would only include me if I allocated my time and energy inefficiently out of passion I've already dedicated to other things - my plate is already full.

 

[Moparmat2000]

Dang that sucks. If mine got wrecked I'd be pretty upset. If you hunt around you can still find OEM GM grilles. I picked one up from my local chevy dealer for about $200. I'm going to do the quad beam retrofit on my 94. I went with a steel cowl induction style hood after mine got destroyed by hail damage. It fit well, no problems. I live out in west Texas. We have a lot of rust free steel out here. Our boneyards are littered with GMT400s.

I also agree the pinnacle of vehicle style was hit in the 1980s , and aside from a few newer cars getting it right "Dodge Challenger" comes to mind and only because they recycled the 1970 body style, most of it out there is dreadful looking. Wifey and I were looking at cars on the lot for her, salesman shows her a Nissan Altima. I told him this thing has such an unfortunate looking grille. It was designed to be homely so people will feel bad for it and take it home. Then we look at a Rav 4 Toyota, and it looked like it was either angry or constipated.

My thoughts are, if you cant look at your car/truck every day when you go to get in it and say, dayum what a good looking styled vehicle this is, then why would you want to make payments on it. The exceptions to this rule are the kid people movers such as dodge caravans, or any other minivan. They only need to do the job reliably. Nobody cares what they look like.

These thoughts are why I still have my GMT400 28 years later. That GMT400 body style to me is just as badass as the 67-72 chevy pickup body. They just knew a thing or 2 about how to style stuff back then. The newest Silverado that came out, I threw up a little the first time I saw it. I dont think I will ever get used to it.