paintballdude05

Well more positive news, I got the damage estimate finally thanks to my Broker. The insurance company was playing hardball citing confidentiality reasons. It was starting to look like I was going to have to ask the truck's former owner for some help (which I really didn't want to do) but my broker actually came though.

Going over the estimate, I saw some stuff I missed in my original list as well as parts that I'm deeming as still being good but they wanted to replace. In my opinion, their estimate was pretty padded with the grand total coming in at just over $15k in damages. It was a pretty equal split between parts and labor. I'm confident I can get the truck fixed for less than half of that by doing a lot of the work as well as sourcing used parts vs. brand new. I'm going to have to get the truck over to the body shop for them to give me a solid estimate of what they're going to charge me to do the work, I'm hoping to do that next week.

Now that I'm confident in my shopping list I went and visited the guy that I will be buying most of my parts from. It looks like he will have pretty much everything I need in used parts and whatever I'll need to buy new he can probably hook me up through a sweet discount deal he gets with one of the dealers in town. He's interested in the build since he's never gone through the process of rebuilding a salvage vehicle so it's a bit of a win-win.

I'm currently in a bit of a dilemma that I'm hoping to get some opinions on. The truck currently has/had chrome bumpers front and back. I obviously need to replace the front bumper and the right end cap on my rear bumper has a small dent that's bugging me so I want to replace that too. I have the option of getting a painted front bumper for cheap and getting it ready for paint for roughly the same price as a half decent chrome one. Finding a good chrome bumper is near impossible from what I've been able to gather, painted ones are more common. The total cost to paint the two bumpers once prepped is probably $200 or so for the pair since they'll be shooting the body color on the truck at the same time. So I guess the question is, Paint to Match front and rear bumpers vs. a chrome set?!

Johnny_bravo00

PTM 100%. You'll end up with a Limeted(ish) style truck. PTM bumper with chrome accents & rims. The limited's were the most sylish of any imo. The Limited in picture is red but youll get the idea.

paintballdude05

Good point on the Limited style, especially since I'm looking at PTM OE style fender flares.

gthrift

Subbed

paintballdude05

Well I went a bit crazy this weekend with Kijiji shopping while I was out of town visiting the GF's family. The guy I'm getting parts from said he'd trade head lights and tail lights for the parts I need for the truck. While being in the GTA, headlights don't fetch nearly as much as they do back home so I picked up whatever I could get my hands on. I have one passenger side light with my truck so I now have 4 complete sets of headlights. I also picked up a bunch of tail lights, 2 are no good anymore though unless I fix them up. I'll probably end up trading in two sets of headlights and the tail lights for my parts. I'm going to keep two sets of head lights for myself, one factory and one that I will eventually modify with projectors. Oh, and I picked up an OEM bug deflector for cheap, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that.

Fharley780

After all is said and done, you'll probably have spent the same amount of money on this truck vs. a used one from a private seller. I've bought a dozen of these trucks ranging from $11,000 to $15,000. All fully loaded with them having an average of 150km. Just bought a '11 FX4 for $14,500 from kijiji with 180 on it. Runs and looks brand new.

paintballdude05

I'm not sure where you're located but around here that would be a steal of a deal. The closest comparable locally (not that there are that many) is $25k private sale, and that's still a truck from Ontario (rusty). I'm confident that when it's all said and done I'll come out at least $5k ahead of buying a comparable truck and I'll already have some custom stuff done to it (PTM handles, flares, mirrors, grille, bumpers, etc.). I'm also not overly concerned with resale since I'll probably drive this thing for 5 years so.

ZacSquatch

Any updates?

paintballdude05

I've made some progress, the biggest thing would be having bought a large amount of the parts I need to get the truck fixed (I'll get some pics and more info later). I got a great deal on these and traded some of those headlights and taillights I had picked up of Kijiji towards the final bill. I also got the bed powerwashed and it came out okay. With a bit of elbow grease and some detergents it should come out looking half decent. The bed liner will need to be touched up at some point in time, but that's far down the list. One last thing, I'm hoping to go meet the body guy tomorrow after work so we can discuss a game plan for getting the truck done. I'll get some pictures up in the next few days!

paintballdude05

I guess it's time for an update. I've been pretty busy with a motor swap on another car so between family events and the weather progress is rather slow. At the start of all this (mid-March) I was hoping to have the truck ready and on the road by June, but all the issues with my paperwork have really delayed things. I think the end of September is a more realistic goal now since I don't expect to send the truck to the body shop for another 2-3 weeks.

As previously mentioned, a few weeks back I picked up a large amount of the parts I need to get the truck fixed. I got a great deal on these and traded some of those headlights and taillights I had picked up of Kijiji towards the final bill. Included in this are a lot of small nickel and dime parts that would have really added up. The remaining high dollar parts are the RH Fender, the Upper Bumper Cover (plastic), the Front Frame Rail/Horns, and Windshield. There are few mechanical items left too but those aren't too expensive.

Most of the parts, as loaded in the back of the 2008 (the fender is in the cab).



The salvaged apron tubes and lower rad support from a burnt-out '13 EcoBoost.



Last week I met with the owner of the body shop that I will be using and we figured out a game plan for the repair. I'm going to do most of the tear down required on the truck, including pulling the dash in order to have access to the back side of the welds that connect the apron tube to the cab. They believe they can straiten my existing frame and that a frame swap is unnecessary. We won't know for sure until it goes on the frame bench to be measured though. If it comes down to a frame swap, I've got a donor located.

I now have a list of what needs to be done before it gets towed over as well as the parts I need to have so they can do the work. There's a fair amount of work left, and I'm not looking forward to pulling the dash out of her. I've also got a lot of prep work to do on all the PTM parts in order to minimize the body shop costs but they don't all need to be ready when the truck leaves my place.

One last thing, I cleaned out the box and power washed the bed. I wanted to see if the purple discoloring would come out. I didn't spend much time on it, and didn't use any cleaner, but it looks promising! Once everything is all said and done I'll go see how much it is to have the bed touched up since there are a few spots where the bed liner is chunked out.