I was able to get the box cleaned out over the weekend so I can store some parts while I work on the truck. I took out about 150lbs worth of dirt, clay, rusty nails and garbage. I would have liked to wash it out but it was too cold out. It appears as though paint or something else stained the bed purple too, hopefully I can get that out.



Once I was done with that, I pulled the innder fender and fender on the passenger side. The foam near the door really turned this into a pain since it didn't want to let go. The drivers side fender should go a little bit better now that I know where to cut the foam. Here's how far I got before I got snowed out.







Here are a few shots of the front passenger door that's now out of alignment, I'm hoping it will go back into place once the front structure gets moved back to where it was.







Now that I've had a chance to fully access all the damage to the truck, I think I've got a game plan as to how I'm going to get repairs done. I have made a list of all the major parts I'm going to need and the next step is going to be getting the frame inspected by a shop. I have a feeling my frame is pretty tweaked though. If it can't be repaired or the repairs are too expensive, I'll most likely end up doing a complete frame swap on the truck. I have a line on a good frame so that might be the way to go even though it'll be a lot of work. On the plus side, it would give me a chance to go over the whole truck with a fine tooth comb.

I had some time Sunday to work on the truck before I once again got snowed-out. I pulled the front bumper mounts off the frame rails along with the "splash guard" and the tow hooks, that went really smooth. I then started to pull the fender and inner fender off which wasn't too bad either, but the **** foam makes it a pain to get things apart without bending metal. I was planning on getting two new fenders anyways so it's not a huge deal.

Once that was done, I tried straitening part of the lower rad support with the winch on my ATV. That didn't go as planned though since 3500lbs wasn't enough to move it. I guess I'll have to use a come-along attached to my 2008 in order to get things moving. I figured I would have enough pulling power with the ATV since that part is pretty thin metal but I was wrong!

I also put my scanner tool on the truck to see if I can track down what was going on with my brake light being on. I got B1676 (Battery Pack Voltage Out Of Range) and C1250 (Yaw Rate Sensor Signal Fault). The B1676 seems to be related to the brake light issue, I'll have to take a closer look at the ABS module wiring connector to see if there is if sustained any damage in the collision. Part of the upper frame was pushed into the module but I haven't taken much time to inspect it.

The next step will be to bypass and remove the radiator so that the truck can be moved to the frame shop. The lower rad hose has a nick in it from contacting the serpentine belt so it's leaking a bit. I'm going to rig up the upper rad hose so that it feeds right back into the lower rad hose. The engine should stay cold enough for the trip and I'll use the cabin heater to help cool it down. I think that I'll also be pulling the condenser out in order to make some more room up front.









A picture of the passenger side frame horn, it's bent pretty badly but I have hope that once both sides are straitened out the rest of the frame will go back into spec. If that happens, I can go ahead and just replace the horns instead of the whole frame.

A bit of progress, but things are going slow. In the last few weeks I got the truck nearly ready to go to the body shop to get the frame inspected. The last thing left to do is to give the whole truck a good wash. I have removed the radiator cross-member/ support, the radiator and the condenser. I then bypassed the radiator so that the engine could run without it installed.

I used parts of the original damaged lower rad hose, an old rad hose from a Chrysler 300M, an elbow, a coupling and some hose clamps to make the following contraption.



You can see the transmission cooler that had to be reconnected after the radiator was gone. I lost a bi of fluid so that will be addressed once the truck is done. These transmissions are sealed and seem to be a pain to check the fluid level and refill.



And pretty much ready to go!



I'm still waiting for my vehicle title (ownership's/ pink slip) to arrive and this is my hold up right now. Apparently they ship out within 30 days of the vehicle being purchased, it's been over a month now. Even if that's 30 working days that will be up by the end of this week. I have contacted AutoBidMaster and they keep telling me it should arrive soon. It's just something else to look out for if you want to attempt something similar.

Yesterday I went and checked out a 2010 F150 King Ranch that was being parted out locally. Somebody took the whole front end before I got there though, minus the front fenders. The engine is blown and it only has 60k miles on it, it looks pretty rough. The seats would need some TLC and would need to be redyed. I asked him how much he wants for what's left of the truck and he said $4k without the box and tailgate. If I went this route, it would get me a good frame and the front frame/aprons that I need to repair my truck (and the fenders of course). On the plus side I could also get the interior to swap into my truck with the heated/cooled seats, but I'm not sold on the King Ranch leather look. Anyways I'm thinking it over, but it probably makes more sense to just buy the parts I need vs. a whole truck. I'm running out of space and my place is starting to look a bit junk yard like.

Here's a comparison:

2010 F150 King Ranch Interior





Now if I mix and match my black interior with some of the 2010 KR accents I could get the look of a 2013 KR.





I like this look a lot more than the Sandstone based interior but I think it still looks a bit gaudy. The other option would be to dye the seats a completely different color but I'm taking the risk of ruining them doing that.

Anyways, that's all I have for now!

I was watching this truck and ultimately ended up bidding on this truck. I backed out of the bidding when it hit a certain point as i just caught the damage on the passenger side how the door and fender were buckled and immediately realized it was worse off than it looked cool to see it on here and glad someone picked it up! i will continue to follow the build!

marshallpulham wrote:I was watching this truck and ultimately ended up bidding on this truck. I backed out of the bidding when it hit a certain point as i just caught the damage on the passenger side how the door and fender were buckled and immediately realized it was worse off than it looked cool to see it on here and glad someone picked it up! i will continue to follow the build!

I didn't catch the damage on the door until the shipper sent me pictures of the truck. It's not a deal breaker, but it makes this project just a bit more complicated now. Thanks for following!

No real material progress on the truck, everything is basically on hold until I can get the truck registered here in Ontario. The truck was sold with a Bill of Sale only, no tittle or registration. I have tried to register it with only this information but it's proving to be very difficult since the ministry is reluctant to do so. I have to provide a paper trail showing the ownership of the vehicle from the insurance company, to my broker, and then to me. The problem is they want to see a Consignment Agreement between COPART and the Insurance Company saying that they were authorized to auction the vehicle. I've been trying to get this letter from COPART through my broker but they don't seem to want to give it up. On top of that, I had to get a weight slip from a scale which showed the total weight of the truck (since Alberta doesn't indicate the weight of a vehicle when it's registered) and a Vehicle Information Report from the Alberta Government to prove that it was actually registered there. If I can't get a copy of the Consignment Agreement I'll have to explore some other ways of completing this project.

No tittle yet. If I don't get anything by tomorrow, I'm going to try a different government office in hopes that they'll work with me on this. I'm hoping to have the tittle in hand by the end of the week so I can get this thing to the body shop once and for all!

Over the weekend I hand washed the exterior of the truck and got it cleaned up. I also rinsed out the seams and hidden areas under the box to rid it of all the sand that was trapped under there. Moisture gets trapped up there and that's where a lot of the rust issues with these trucks come from. I also notice some stone chip damage on the rear quarters of the box so those will have to be touched up too.

I got a good deal on a pair of 2014 XLT chrome grills over the weekend. The one with the blue oval has some really bad chrome bubbling issues on the outside trim while the other one without the badge has one very small spot. My plan is to strip the chrome off the surround, and paint it body color (Flame Blue) to give it a custom look and reduce the amount of chrome on the truck. I'm not sure what I'll do with the second grille, I'll probably keep it as a backup for now.



Looking around last night I was able to find a picture of a guy with a Flame Blue truck that did what I'm looking to do with the same style grille.

I've got my ownerships! After a bit of back and forth with a different office I finally got an Ontario tittle issued in my name. I had to pay taxes once again but I'm not really bothered by it after all I've been through to get this far. The next step will be to pick a shop that can do the major body repairs as well as perform a salvage vehicle inspection on behalf of the government. I have one in mind, I just got to go see them to make sure they'll play ball with me and that they do good work. Stay tuned!

So I had a good talk with the body shop that was my first choice, they seem reasonable and knowledgeable when it comes to the rebuild process. My next obstacle will now be getting the original damage estimate from the Insurance company that declared the truck a total loss. This estimate must be included in the rebuild file, there's no way around it apparently. I called up the insurance company and the adjuster was able to track it down but he won't release it to me citing confidentiality reasons. He was going to escalate the matter to his manager to see what they could do but they still haven't gotten back to me about it. I'm giving them until Monday to get back to me before I bug them. If that doesn't work, I'll try my local insurance representative to see if he could help. Hopefully I can leverage my position as a new customer (I just switched car insurance to the same company) to get what I need, fingers crossed!

After talking to the body shop, they explained that they will probably blend into the front doors and the hood in order to get a good paint match. With that in mind, I decided to remove all the door handles to make it easier for them and I will also be prepping them so they can be painted body colored. I'm also going to be removing the tailgate handle as well as the mirror caps to get those color matched as too. Lastly, I'm contemplating on buying a set of factory style fender flares and getting those painted body colored before installation.

The interior panels were removed to get the exterior handles off and I have decided to leave them off for now and give them a good cleaning outside the truck. In doing so, I discovered that the drivers door window was replaced at some point in time since it's no longer Ford glass. The installers did a number on the splash shield so I'm going to look into replacing that. The seats and floor carpet will be making their way out of the truck for a thorough cleaning. I'm an interior clean freak so this is the most effective way of getting things really clean. Also, if I have the time I'll try some sound deadening tricks on the doors and other parts of the interior to quite things down a bit.

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?!

Your call, but I like chrome.