Is the "body shop" tryna rob me

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Vbb199

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If you're paying for parts, then that's a complete ripoff IMO. Id like to see his body work inside and out before I pay that much, had better be top notch work with no bondo ****, no body line mismatches, no seams visible, etc

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deve05

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He says he is suppling the patch panels, and that price makes sense if they are painting the whole cab after
The 7k is labor for fixing the cab and painting it along with the short bed i will be supplying. No cutting the long bed, I'm gonna be buying a short box.

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Honky Kong jr

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The frame may be a bit ambitious for a beginner but you can totally learn and tackle patch panel replacement and body work. Just get to learning!

Let me tell you a story so you know where I’m coming from....

When I built my ‘77 longbed I encountered a very similar situation but I’d had mine 100% rust free. I’d already replaced floors, rockers and cab corners and it was free from any major dents. I took it to the body shop to get a quote for bodywork and paint. When they got back to me they quoted me $10,000!!! I was flabbergasted honestly and actually kinda pissed. I took my truck back home. After getting passed that I decided to do the bodywork myself. It was a learning process but I learned as I went and had to go back and redo panels as I went and got more experience but I got the thing bodyworked and ready for paint. I still paid to get paint on it and that alone was $4k but that was better than $10k!!!! Now, for my dually I’m gonna go ahead and take the plunge and paint this one.

Point is, you can learn almost anything and it’ll be skills you can use for the rest of your life! Just takes time and an interest in tackling it
Is say all that rot is a bit ambitious for a dreamer.
 

deve05

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If you're paying for parts, then that's a complete ripoff IMO. Id like to see his body work inside and out before I pay that much, had better be top notch work with no bondo ****, no body line mismatches, no seams visible, etc

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He said he had to use bondo. He said there was no way to do it without it. His worked looked good in pictures but like i said I'm not looking for show quality i just want decent paint on it.

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Vbb199

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The 7k is labor for fixing the cab and painting it along with the short bed i will be supplying. No cutting the long bed, I'm gonna be buying a short box.

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If he's doing a complete paint job, then that figure might be more accurate, I misread that or something, I just thought it was body work for 7k

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Old77

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He said he had to use bondo. He said there was no way to do it without it. His worked looked good in pictures but like i said I'm not looking for show quality i just want decent paint on it.

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Everybody uses a skim coat of bondo to get the panels flat. Much more than a skim coat and it gets into hack even territory lol
 

Honky Kong jr

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He said he had to use bondo. He said there was no way to do it without it. His worked looked good in pictures but like i said I'm not looking for show quality i just want decent paint on it.

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I might have a 1/16”of plastic on mine and it looked just as bad. Plastic is for toys not trucks
 

Vbb199

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Something about bondo just REALLY REALLY gets under my skin. I've taken a intermediate share with cutting a ****** rusty floor out of a 84 k5 I had and welding it l back in, or even doing side body panel repairs, and I'll be the first to tell you it sucks. But the guys out there that take OEM panels, cut, fit, weld, and have no seam on it and it looks factory... Those guys are the real deal. Far beyond my capabilities. We can talk about engines, drivetrain, big axles, whatever, but that body **** is beyond my patience.
The bondo to me tells me you were too cheap or too lazy. It's like putting a veil over a cancer screening at the hospital, "just doesn't exist anymore"

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deve05

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The frame may be a bit ambitious for a beginner but you can totally learn and tackle patch panel replacement and body work. Just get to learning!

Let me tell you a story so you know where I’m coming from....

When I built my ‘77 longbed I encountered a very similar situation but I’d had mine 100% rust free. I’d already replaced floors, rockers and cab corners and it was free from any major dents. I took it to the body shop to get a quote for bodywork and paint. When they got back to me they quoted me $10,000!!! I was flabbergasted honestly and actually kinda pissed. I took my truck back home. After getting passed that I decided to do the bodywork myself. It was a learning process but I learned as I went and had to go back and redo panels as I went and got more experience but I got the thing bodyworked and ready for paint. I still paid to get paint on it and that alone was $4k but that was better than $10k!!!! Now, for my dually I’m gonna go ahead and take the plunge and paint this one.

Point is, you can learn almost anything and it’ll be skills you can use for the rest of your life! Just takes time and an interest in tackling it
Thanks for the advice, and honestly I'd tackle it no problem. But like I said I'm a college student and also work 40+hours a week. The time I have at my disposal doesn't let me do that. It would take me years to get all the work done.

Maybe in 4 years when I'm done with school I will have the time to sit down and tackle a project this large on my own.

But for now based on what I'm learning from this post, this may not be the time for me and I may have to put the truck back together and sell it to someone who can fix it and get me something more drive ready that I can enjoy in what little time I have off.

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legopnuematic

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That price figure is pretty accurate. My 79 I have been working on its restoration for less than a year currently (around 35 weeks), and I put on average 10 hours of work into it each week. that is minimum 350 hours of labor that I have put into my truck and if I was charging myself $15 an hour (very cheap for body work) that would be $5250 in just labor. It still doesn't have a floor in it yet, I am still another 50+ hours of body work left. I however am not caving and paving with body filler, I am doing all of it with real metal welded together. Add the costs of panels, paint, abrasives and other associated costs and it keeps going upward.

7k for a cave and pave job- no way.
7k for properly dressed welds and metal finishing that only requires a skim coat of filler (not bondo, but a quality filler like 3M platinum plus)- very reasonable.

Having someone bondo it up and then six months later having it all fall off and apart again, then having to pay someone else to fix it the right way the second time around is not fun.
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Vbb199

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Thanks for the advice, and honestly I'd tackle it no problem. But like I said I'm a college student and also work 40+hours a week. The time I have at my disposal doesn't let me do that. It would take me years to get all the work done.

Maybe in 4 years when I'm done with school I will have the time to sit down and tackle a project this large on my own.

But for now based on what I'm learning from this post, this may not be the time for me and I may have to put the truck back together and sell it to someone who can fix it and get me something more drive ready that I can enjoy in what little time I have off.

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Word of advice as a young man myself, after college, you don't have anymore time lol

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deve05

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Sorry, I'm just a old grumpy purist. Good luck with your build. I forget that everyone doesn't think like me !! Lol
Its alright man, I'm like that too in many ways. 2jz swapped 67 mustang?? Yuck!! But this is THE truck to cut up, it was just junk before I got it.

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Old77

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Thanks for the advice, and honestly I'd tackle it no problem. But like I said I'm a college student and also work 40+hours a week. The time I have at my disposal doesn't let me do that. It would take me years to get all the work done.

Maybe in 4 years when I'm done with school I will have the time to sit down and tackle a project this large on my own.

But for now based on what I'm learning from this post, this may not be the time for me and I may have to put the truck back together and sell it to someone who can fix it and get me something more drive ready that I can enjoy in what little time I have off.

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Well, decisions are not easy. At the time I made the decision I was newly married and working 40 hours a week. So you either spend the money for someone else to do it or spend the time doing it yourself and have it take longer. You’ll never have more time than you have now. Life never slows down and when it does you have no money lol
 

Old77

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Something about bondo just REALLY REALLY gets under my skin. I've taken a intermediate share with cutting a ****** rusty floor out of a 84 k5 I had and welding it l back in, or even doing side body panel repairs, and I'll be the first to tell you it sucks. But the guys out there that take OEM panels, cut, fit, weld, and have no seam on it and it looks factory... Those guys are the real deal. Far beyond my capabilities. We can talk about engines, drivetrain, big axles, whatever, but that body **** is beyond my patience.
The bondo to me tells me you were too cheap or too lazy. It's like putting a veil over a cancer screening at the hospital, "just doesn't exist anymore"

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
A skim coat is fine. There’s not a metal guy on the planet that can get metal perfectly straight without a skim coat of bondo. Even Charley Hutton uses it to finish off metalwork
 

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