Well, I have a bit of egg on my face. I may have bought someone else's problem. The body on my '95 3500 looks good, but the undercarriage, including the frame, is very rusty, to the point where I'm considering a frame swap.

This is something that's beyond my abilities to handle. I might be able to get my father-in-law (who runs a shop) to help me, but he described it as a "pain in the *" job.

I still like the truck, and I want to fix it. I'd appreciate some pointers on how big of a job this really is, and what I should expect to pay for labor. If anyone can recommend a shop in southeast or central Florida who does good work, that'd be even better.

(I may already have a lead on a frame that will fit, off a '96 2500, although I'll need to ship it cross-country.)

 

I'd run it the way it sits.. its goin to be like building a new truck probly cost you a small fortune to pay someone to do all the work very time consuming plus you never know what else is going to fall apart once you start digging into it.. may turn into more of a headache than what its worth imho..

 

An acquaintance (I don't know him well enough to call him a friend, and so I'm also debating how far to trust him) is a shop manager for a place that does body work on big rigs. So they have everything they need. He says they can do it in nine hours at $72/hr. Plus the cost of the frame and necessary parts, of course.

Sounds a bit too good to be true, so I've asked to get that quote in writing. But even if my frame is salvageable (and it looks like it would be, with a bit of welding work), I'm seriously considering his offer.

What do y'all think?

 

i have a c&c frame its a reg cab (they are the same length as a ext cab short bed) im fixing to be able to get rid of im in oklahoma if thats any closer to you

 

I'm in Florida, but I'll be driving out to Dallas with the truck. Whereabouts in Oklahoma?

(I may have a bit of a chicken and egg problem, as I need to pull a 4000-lb wood chipper to Texas. I'll definitely have to get a new receiver for the hitch; I'll find out Sunday if I need to do anything about the frame as well.)