How Much Should I Pay For A Project Truck?
There are a lot of ways to buy a project truck. You can pay a lot for somebody’s turnkey daily driver that you can add some of your own personalty to. You can buy a truck that starts and drives well enough to get it to your house. Or you can buy one like mine that I had to load on a trailer and haul the engine, transmission and various other parts home in the back of my pickup.
How much should I pay for a project truck that I want to build myself?
This will depend on a few variables:
- What is your budget?
- How much experience do you have?
- Do you just want a daily driver?
- Do you want a show truck?
- Do you just want a fun and/or fast truck?
These are some pretty important questions to look at before we dive into this big project so follow along.
What Is Your Initial Purchase Budget?
This is the first big decision we have to make on our build. How much do we want to give someone to relieve them of their project they’ve given up on. Or circumstances have come up that causes them to need to sell (like my purchase). These can be your best purchases as they may have accumulated a lot of parts over the years and are ready to sell at a discounted price.
This type of purchase takes patience, searching and possibly a couple hundred mile drive to pick it up. I’ve found these purchases to be in the $2000 to $4000 dollar range depending on what is included. My project that I bought is a 1972 C10 short box (shown at the top of this post) that I hauled home on a trailer– with the engine and transmission and various other parts in the back of my pickup– for $3000.
Are you looking in people’s backyards as you drive by for that rusty old non runner? They might be glad to get rid of it for a few hundred dollars. Here where I live in rural Idaho these kinds of finds are everywhere. Granted most of these will need hauled home on a trailer, but they could be good starting points. In our area these types of projects can be purchased for under $1000 and the engine included may or may not be usable.
We may be combing Craigslist, Facebook, or local newspaper ads for something that runs and drives that looks pretty decent, but it’s going to cost us some cash to get it. This can be a $1500 runner that’s a little beat up and rusty– to a pretty decent driver for $4000 to $8000. Here is an example of this type of project truck for sale:
Buying this type of truck can vary widely in what we pay. Is it the most standard truck with a six cylinder and three or four speed transmission? Is it a more deluxe model with a V8 and automatic transmission? Then you get into the higher end models that have air conditioning, carpeting, chrome moulding and other nice amenities.
This truck was sitting along the highway not far from where I live for $1500. It is the lower end model with the dings and rust included in the purchase price.
The deluxe models will command a higher purchase price because fewer of them were originally built so they are much more sought after. You may pay as high as $10,000 for a good running big block air conditioned truck that is a rust free driver. You will not have to spend nearly as much to fix it up as you will the $1500 truck.
How Much Do You Want To Spend On Your Truck to Finish It?
Now we need to try and get an estimate of how much we want to spend on this build to get it finished. This will vary a lot for every different type of build we just talked about, from your basket case to the daily driver you bought.
Here is a list of some of the costs to consider. We start at the lower end costs of pretty much just cleaning, servicing and tuning up for a daily driver while doing the labor ourselves. This will vary a ton depending on the condition of the truck you brought home.
- Engine: $200 to $4000 up to $5000 or more. Is your engine in good running condition and just needs cleaned-painted-tuned or does it need a complete rebuild? If you are going to do a rebuild do you want to build a high horsepower motor? I did a budget serpentine belt system on mine for $200 and am slowly adding chrome and horsepower with total costs still to be determined.
- Transmission: $100 to $2000 – Is yours good but needs cleaned, painted, serviced, or do you want a new rebuilt upgrade? I cleaned, serviced, painted my TH400 and put a shift kit in it for $250.
- Driveline: up to $700. I replaced my 2 drive lines with a single longer driveline that I purchased at an Ipull yard then had the correct ends attached by a driveline shop. Total cost was $225.
- Differential: $100 to $800 – Service and paint– up to a gear ratio change and positraction dropped in. My differential is a 373 gear ratio. And later I will add the positraction for about $400 by doing it myself.
- Rebuild brakes: $200 to $800 – new shoes and rotors to disc brake swap out.
- Body work: $2000 to $15000 or more. Mine is the do it yourself rust repair, bondo work and painting it myself. The other end of the spectrum is taking it to a body shop and saying– here it is do it.
- Interior: $200 to $3000 up to $4000 or more. Again it is how much you want to do yourself and how you want to do it. I picked up good electric bucket seats at an ipull yard for $60. They were an easy install with a little seat frame work.
- Wheels and tires: $900 to $2500 depending on your tastes, or maybe even something less expensive if you can find good used ones.
- Drop kit: $200 and up to $1500 if you change spindles, springs, etc. I did shorter springs in the front and flipped my leafs in the back for a few hundred dollars.
Then we get into the costs of creating something show worthy, with a lot of horsepower and a lot of the extras. With these costs you will still be doing much of the labor yourself except the higher end of the body and paint work which at $15,000 will be hired out.
That is just a rough beginning of the list of repairs and fixing up to do on a build. I am doing just as much as I possibly can so my budget is on the lower side of the cost sheet at around $6000 to $8000. I have found that all of these things can be self taught as you do them. To me that is the funnest part of doing a build which leads me into our next topic.
How Much Experience Do You Have And How Much Do You Want To Do Yourself?
This question also includes: do you have a place to work on a truck without being too much of a bother to your neighbors? I believe this would only be a problem if you lived in an apartment building without access to some sort of garage, or if you have some grumpy neighbors.
I work on my truck about eight months out of the year in my garage, then I give up the garage to keep our car out of the snow. My truck spends its winters wrapped up real tight in tarps out in the snow.
The first winter that I owned my truck, I pulled the engine out and started it on the floor, then cleaned and painted it. This made for a great winter project. I would love to have a nice heated shop to work in all winter but then I couldn’t afford the parts to build my truck.
With all the the internet sites, and being able to google any topic of repair that you can come up against, I wouldn’t let inexperience stop you from doing most of the repairs yourself. Where this could become a problem is in rebuilding an engine or transmission. There are so many specialty tools needed for this that the cost of them could make it prohibitive.
Most parts stores now rent tools and many of them have loaner programs. So if you want to do a brake job, change a power steering pump or almost any other repair, they are there to help. Often you will find the people behind the counter are gear heads themselves and can give you some very helpful advice.
I myself have been doing every repair on my truck except having the drive line built. Most of the repairs can be done at home, you just have to put your mind to it and just dive in. Go buy that cherry picker and pull that motor and transmission.
Do You Want A Daily Driver?
This really fits in with the budget process. If you are wanting to build a cool looking daily driver that you wouldn’t be afraid to take to the parts store or drive to work, then you will probably be able to keep it in the lower cost area.
This is what I’m building. Something that is fun and comfortable to drive, and that will light up the tires. But at the same time I’m not going to be worried about a $15,000 paint job sitting in the sun for a few days, or getting a parking lot door ding.
I have been working on my project for three years now and plan on working on it for many years to come. I really don’t plan on it ever being completely finished because I always want to have something to work on.
It’s great to be going through town and see somebody driving their unfinished project truck, or just driving down a road and see a truck on blocks in someone’s driveway. Some of my favorite trucks at car shows are the ones the owners bring that are still being built.
Are you Planning To Build a Show Truck?
If it was in my budget I would love to build a really classy show truck. These are the trucks we drool over at the car shows and make wish lists in our minds. There’s nothing quite like lots of billet, chrome and a deep glossy paint job.
When you see these near perfect trucks at a car and truck show the owners are almost always close by and are willing to share information about their trucks. I doubt you will ever find a truck owner who doesn’t like to talk about their truck.
It’s great that as we build our trucks we can always take them up to the next level one step at a time.
There are so many improvements you can make on your truck that you can stay busy for a long time. If you don’t like the way it brakes, add disc brakes. Air conditioning is a great add on if you don’t already have it. There are always more improvements to make.
When I go to shows I am always looking for ways that I can improve my ride and if I look at a truck long enough, if the owner is nearby he will come share some ideas with me about his truck.
Final Thoughts
Some of us just like to work on trucks, period. My truck isn’t a daily driver, I live too far out in the country to want to pay the gas bill to drive it much (454 with a 750 Edelbrock = bad gas milage). It is a great stress reliever to work on, and then jump in and drive it around the block. My block is four miles around, so it’s probably about a half gallon of gas.
When I see someone in an old classic truck that they’ve added some custom wheels and exhaust to, it makes me feel good. That means this hobby is being carried on by another generation.
After I hauled mine home I bought a $45 engine cradle, then hooked the radiator to the front, wired it etc. and started it on the floor. Now that is fun to do.
If you are a more serious builder, then I’m sure you’re enjoying your truck just as much as I am. Its great to have a hobby that you can spend as little money on or as much money as you want and get the same amount of enjoyment out of it.
The Tool Box:
When pulling the motor out of a truck, your lift to clear the radiator support will be quite a bit higher than when you’re lifting an engine out of a car. This can be a height difference of nearly eighteen inches with some trucks. That is why I purchased a two ton lift instead of a one ton. The two ton lift will allow you to keep your pick arm extended a lot further out giving you a higher lift capacity. Here is a good example of a good quality two ton lift to purchase:
Another tool that I have found very useful for many years is a portable winch that you can hook on your bumper for pulling cars on a trailer and I’ve also hooked it to an overhead beam in my garage to lift engines and transmissions out of the back of my pickup. Here is an example of the one I use that I have never had a problem with:
Happy Trucking!
Related Topics
Where can I find a project truck? There are a lot of places to find trucks to build depending on what you are looking for. Craigslist, Facebook, Thrifty Nickel, local newspapers, Hemmings Motor News, eBay. Drive through the countryside and you will find them sitting around farms, just stop and ask. People’s driveways, the back of small car lots, they’re everywhere.
How much does it cost to have a shop restore a truck? An overall restoration done by a reputable shop is going to cost you anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 depending on the condition of your truck. Most of this will be labor costs at near $100 per hour with the remainder in parts.
