Welds were about 3" long on each side of the 4 mounts. They ripped holes out of the frame, so I am not sure how they could be welded better. Did you miss that it bent the 3" channel pieces on all four corners?

 

Ouch...After doing my share of body work....I would swap your whole drive train into another 1999-2002 dodge truck...

 

I wrecked my 01 waaaaay worse than that. Insurance gave me 11000 for the truck and I bought it back for 2000. I sold all the good parts for about $6000 so I was at a total of $15000. That's more than I could've sold the truck for in good shape......

 

My 01 took a similar 'ghost' ride into a tree. Damage was not remotely as bad as yours. My truck hit amazingly square, ripped a class V hitch in half. From the flatbed pic, it looks like yours was at a much sharper angle.

My truck needed to go on the frame rack, body guy said it wasn't bad, but he did pull on it a bit. I would be very suprised if your frame isn't tweeked.

 

Yeah, that's was my thinking too because the impact was on the corner of the bed. I can't help but think that it wouldn't rack it some. If I keep and fix it, I will have them put it on a frame machine.

 

Local shop here does Cummins to Ferd swaps. Says the kit is 5K. Then you need the labor. They mostly add twins - no sense doing all the swap work if you aren't going to boost output.

If I were going to the trouble of doing major work, I'd find a 12V engine. **** k the VP.

edit: The person that tracshed it should contribute something. Your insurance premiums are going to take a hit.

 

With the damage to the frame I'd look into the buy back if the insurance company comes back with a decent offer, or keep it and swap it into another 2nd gen or a Ford.

You could spend the time/money by putting the frame on a machine to check it, but why bother? Pretty much everyone here will say with that kind of a hit the frame will have some kind of damage/tweak and there's a really good chance you can't fix it.

That's a hard hit your rig took and I simply wouldn't trust it for any kind of medium to heavy towing .... or saving you if it takes another good hit later on.



Kris

 

Insurance says $3950 to repair the truck and that they are not gonna total it. Shocked me since it has 326,000 miles on it with an already salvage title. I have had a local repair shop look at it and he said $2000-2500 to fix everything and repaint the entire truck. It is a really good dependable good economical truck to work out of, but I am wondering weather to pocket the money and sell/part out the truck, or fix it and keep using it.

 

What he said..

 

That sounds like a low ball price, id get some more estimates.
I cant see the frame not being tweaked....

 

them there welds definiately did not penetrate!, look at the bright side, at least no one was hurt, just imagine what the outcome would have been if you were loaded and ran into something, damage and loss of life would almost be certain!

 

well guess I'll put in my 2 cents..... NEVER weld a body to a truck frame, the welds will ALWAYS break with vibrations. always BOLT the bed to the frame. you can bolt brackets to the frame, bolt the bed to the brackets etc. 48 years repairing, welding and driving trucks, seen lots of cracked and broken welds

 

I used to work for a place that installed flat beds. We welded them all on. If the welds are breaking its because the welds aren't getting any penetration. Poor weld quality. BTW I dont think that truck looks that bad. I'd do her over.

 

Had another person tell me between $1800-2000 but he didn't include fixing a dent in the passenger door that the first guy did.

 

i have a cusin who bought a rolled 12 valve a then bought a cheap gasser for the body parts