Well, unfortunately my 165K mile, very clean 1993 W250 LE Club Cab CTD was hit yesterday and went into a pretty good sized ditch. I am trying to decide if I should buy another truck (about $15k) or repair this one. Prior to the accident everything worked great and it drove flawlessly.

Thoughts?

#2

I'd say tear into it and see how far the damage goes. Looking at a fender, grille,radiator and bumper you are probaly going to spent about $1500-$2000 in good used parts.

I am afraid the frame rail might be bent. I swear the engine looks shoved over.

Good thinking man. Let's start a parts list!

Fender
Wheel Well
Radiator support
Intercooler
Pass Fender
Driver Fender
Bumper
Grille
Passenger Marker Light
Passenger Headlight Bucket
Passenger Hood Hinge


We did look over the front frame rails for cracks and have yet to find any. Is it possible to straighten the frame on something like this?

Are you sure you can't straighten some of the stuff? Like the wheel well and the radiator support, hood hinge ETC.How bad is the drivers side? You didn't show it yet. It will be kind of hard to tell about frame damage until you get the bent stuff out of the way.It takes a good solid hit to bend that frame. You could have it torn apart in a day taking it easy.

I'll get some more detailed pictures a while so we can scheme.

Thanks again for the insight I'm heartbroken that my CTD got wrecked by such a careless driver.

The radiator support is a 91.5 to 93 piece only. Non-IC trucks got different core supports.
They can be hard to find.


That truck got hit hard. There's a good chance that rail is bent.

Considering how these are the best thing to a muscle car, I'd say yes fix it.

If you don't want to, pm me, I may be interested in it.

Don't let it to scrap, the parts are worth much more than insurance will pay.

i would fix it---you might have broken the motor mounts as well---surprised you didnt list the radiator as well---at a pick apart the complete fender/hood/bumper/core support wouldnt even run $350--buy a new intercooler---if you drove it to my house i have all the parts in white---heck if the price was right i would drive it to my house...bob

Thank you sir, very good to know once I begin shopping. I do plan on trying to find enough white parts to make it work.

The big questions is can a frame rack straighten something like this if it is in fact bent?


It was such a stupid accident. A guy in a little Hyundai turn left into me at about 25 MPH. Into the ditch we went...

Fender
Wheel Well
Radiator support
Intercooler
Pass Fender
Driver Fender
Bumper
Grille
Passenger Marker Light
Passenger Headlight Bucket
Passenger Hood Hinge
Radiator

If you have parts in white I'm all ears. Do you think I'm better off buying junk yard parts over aftermarket fenders/grille/etc? Are the ching-chong parts junk?

original sheet metal is the best----the only economical shipping is trailways/greyhound and they have a 100 # limit on packages----start some craigs searches in an area you are comfortable with...just ran a search for you---craigs--got units in beaver creek, eagle creek and a whole body and frame in renton....

Now is the time to swap the running gear into an older crew cab or Ramcharger.

Sorry about your truck but if it were mine I would fix it or swap into something else.

I would fix it the cummins trucks still hold there value that would be a 8 or $9000 dollar truck here .

fix it! got any frame shops around you to look at it?

Take a look at Dieseltruckresource.com and see what you can find. There are a few 1st gen owners in your part of the country.


The most important thing for you to do is read The Sticky.

http://www.dieseltruckresource.com/forum...-sticky-102027/

It looks fixable and it shouldn't be too expensive to pick up the stuff that was wrecked. It might be easier to pick up a parts truck if you're in a rush to fix it and don't have time to be shopping around for reasonably priced parts.

Start stripping it down till you can get some really clear views of the frame rail. If it's bent it shouldn't cost that much for a body shop to pull it back.

Low mile desirable truck, I'd fix it. I would bet the frame is tweaked, but I recall from a previous job, the Chief frame machines along with some high tech measuring attachments might help lining it all back up. I can't believe a good frame shop couldn't beef that frame up a bit after straightening.

Fix it

Fix it...a good frame shop can pull that back in place.

I would fix it if it were mine.

When I rear ended a F150 on the highway, State Farm totaled my 2002 CTD 6 speed. I bought it back and later sold it to a guy that rebuilt it, I needed a new knee and my wife could not drive it even if I fixed it. The radiator was ruined and it needed a hood, bumper and both fenders, but the headlights were not broken and the air bags did not deploy! I actually made money on the sale and the new owner is very happy with it. If it had been an automatic, I would still have it.

sell it to me and I'll fix it!

I would fix it in a heartbeat. Take it to a frame shop, any frame shop should be able to measure it and inspect for straightness. Judging by the level of damage, if it needs straightening, it would be a minor job for them. Around here the body parts would be tough to find in nice shape, but the truck is worth the effort.

I wouldn't even think about not fixing it .

X2!!!

Fix that rig...

After a few (9) years of living in an area that doesn't use much road salt I guess you get lazy. Thanks for all of the words of encouragement.

Still waiting on an adjuster. I'll be interested to see how they handle it.

Gather some documentation from the internet on what they sell for because you know they are going to want to total it and low ball you on the offer.

Good advice sir, and I have been working on it.

From my market research a truck just like mine is about $15k in these parts.

Good times, bad times....

The insurance company told me to...

Let's just put it this way;

The only thing the good hands of American Family are giving me is the finger.

American Family is fired! Way to not investigate or defend my best interests.

Moving forward with the good news is that a gentleman within the metro area has all of the parts I need on a donor truck!

I'll report back when I see it tomorrow.

Wasn't the other guy at fault? Get a lawyer.

You know i've owned several of this era of truck. The nose is all bolt-on, and will be easi to replace. Is the frame bent? Maybe. It's easy to measure out. You might be able to leave the frame bent, too, as long as it doesn't pose a safety issue.

Pull off your bent sheet metal and let's have a closer look.

I would absolutely fix that. Even if frame is bent, the local frame shop here would only charge $250-500, depending on how bad its tweaked.

Okay, I have the fenders, hood and radiator support off. Hopefully we will be hanging some sheet metal on it this weekend!

Anybody have a line on white 1993 W250 front end parts?

I'm also looking for a front hubcap because one is dented.

While I have it apart are there any turbo/intercooler upgrades I should be doing?

Thanks for all of the support, I sure have missed having my truck!

Did you get the frame measured? I can almost guarantee it is bent

No, I did not. It measures out okay from the floor and side to side. No rivets appear to have shifted. Anyone have specs on the frame measurements?

I would definitely take it somewhere and have it measured. You cannot do this with a tape. You need a good tram bar at minimum. Shouldn't be more than a couple hundred bucks for someone to put it on their computerized laser measuring system. We had one in the body shop class I went to in college. I just hate to see you get everything fixed and sheet metal adjusted only to find out that you can't align it.

hubcaps are easy, I got some of mine from these people, and they look better than the truck.

http://www.hubcaps.org/options/dod1-aoptions.html

I will most definitely fix it.

Thanks for all of the advice and encouragement. We are going to drop it off with a good friend that runs a frame rack in town this week. He already picked up the fenders to start jamming them. During my search for a front bumper I found this less cummins/5-speed:

It's just too nice of a truck to part so we are going to put a different 12V and upgrade to a NV4500 next spring. That's a PTO winch btw, pretty cool huh?

nice find