There were 4 passengers and none of us suffered anything more than bruises and muscle soreness.

I was returning from a bonfire up in the hills on this old gravel road at 1am. I was going too fast for the gravel, purely a lapse of judgement, no alcohol was involved. Around a curve to the left I tried to follow but my rear end slid and my right rear tire slid down into the ditch, caught the embankment and flipped the truck.

We rolled once and landed as seen, upright.

Looking at the truck in the daylight, the headache rack served as a rollbar and absorbed most of the upside down impact, keeping the cab from collapsing on us. The headache rack is severely bent but i'm glad it was straight to begin with.

Everyone's fine so the time has come to figure out what to do with the truck. If i'm not mistaken, the frame and powertrain suffered no damage due to the nature of the wreck. While I've never done this personally my uncle has always told me that the front clip, cab, and bed are all bolted to the frame so theoretically I could pull a new body at the junk yard and just scrap the old one. I'm unemployed though.

Since I've bought the truck i've put about $1500 worth of parts and 100 hours of labor into the truck, but all of this has been in the powertrain. The body was worthless and beat up to begin with so I didn't really suffer a big loss.

Here are the options I'm considering:

1) Replace body on existing frame and power train. There are four or five of these era pickups out at the junkyard. Their bodies aren't perfect but are better than mine was before the rollover. By scrapping the old pieces I could recover most of my costs.

2) Part out the truck and use the money towards a new truck or fix my up '67 mustang. I'm not sure how much I could get by parting this out. The 6.9L runs great but it's history is completely unknown. I don't know the mileage or anything, so I'm not sure how much it would be worth to someone else. They can hear it run before hand but that's all I have to offer a buyer. The transmission and tcase are the same deal. I've done a lot of work but none of it would remotely be considered a rebuild on any of those components. There is a brand new clutch that I spent all week installing. The transmission is a T-19 and the Tcase is a bw1345.

3) Find a rolling chassis to transfer my powertrain into.

My dad's friend offered to give me his old mid-70s Ford. I believe it's an F-250 or 350. I know it has a 460 and 2wd. It's been sitting for a few years which doesn't bother me, but it's not exactly what I look for in a truck so I'm not sure i'll take him up on that. I'd have to go and get it, and it's about 170 miles away.

Any input you guys have here would be appreciated.

Thanks
-Matt

 

That half-axle shown in the third photo was sitting in the bed at the time, it didn't come off the truck

-Matt

 

Dang! Sure glad to hear you guys are alright. Sorry bout your truck tho.

 

She wasn't very pretty to begin with. I kinda like the new rugged look.

 

Dang, that looks a lot worse than it sounds, glad you're all ok.

 

Actually the box doesn't even look that bad, the cab and front end suffered most of it. Glad to hear everyone's okay!!

 

pull and save buddy!!!!lol let me know if you are needing help to haul parts being your truck is kinda inoperable at this point.you could even put the new style body on if ya like it better

 

First off, how the heck did you even fit four people in a reg cab, were ya'll packed like sardines? lol

About the truck - I vote for taking the free 70's truck and dropping the diesel stuff in it

 

I'd do that in a heartbeat if it wasn't such a complicated swap.

 

very lucky man, 4 plus the driver??????? its prolly better you guys were shoved in there not much room for yous to bounce around prolly saved your lives....... sorry bout your truck man , i posted on your part out add

 

Too bad you're in Pullman... Got a friend in Spokane Valley that would help you pull the engine, tranny, and whatever else just so he can scrap the rest. I don't think he has time for the drive there and back though.

 

It is complicated but if you have both trucks there it should not be to bad.Strip the 70s stuff all out then just pull stuff piece by piece off your truck. The only think then really would be gauges and stuff like that. I think that would be the easy way of doing the swap.