I'm buying a truck soon, and I have one in mind. I was wondering if anyone could tell me how much I should offer him for it.

-1988 Chevrolet Shortbox/Regular Cab 4x4
-Fairly new paint job (ie no rust breakout), rims + rubber in good shape
-Chassis + motor used to be a zamboni (so essentially a partial restore job - he put a cab and box on it)
-Stock 305ci V8 (Throttle Body Injection) w/ Edelbrock Air Breather (doesn't matter)
-Transmission just went out (because 3rd + 4th gear were brittle because they were never used when it was a zamboni), I was going to see if I can take it without motor and tranny - because I have a rebuilt late model motor (about 425hp) and tranny to go in it
-Performance Borla exhaust (it sounds freakin sweet, even with the gutless 305)
-Alpine stereo (decent) and euro tailights, fender flares, etc. (All the nice touches)
-Hard Tonneau cover
-It's a really clean truck and I was thinking about offering him between $2500-$3500 because of it being a partial restore

Anyways, any input would be helpful...

 

I would'nt give him anything more than $2500 if even that. If the tranny and motor are trash than you are paying for a frame and some minor parts.

 

This may sound like a dumb question, but I'm in Canada so would that be $2500 in Canadian dollars or US?

 

[You have to consider a few things.
If the gears in the tranny went that fast, what condition if thr transfer case, ring gears in the differentials, This thing has probably never seen more than 25 mph. So you could be looking at a lot of breaking parts once you dump that 425 HP Beast into it.

The other ting I'd think about a lot is the frame. Being on ice all that time, you could have some brittle stress points that won’t show up until you put the pedal to the metal. It sure would be a bummer to pay him $2500.00 and have the rear end fall out the first time you stomp on it, or worse yet the frame shatter. I have seen one of these once before, and this is exactly what happened. The frame shattered in some really bad spots, and the guy had more plate metal welded on it that a battle ship. Of course you didn’t see it until you crawled under it and started to look at the spring mounts, cross member mounts, Steering box mounting, and motor mounts on the frame rails.

I agree I wouldn’t' pay more than about $1500 US or $1000.00 Canadian.

Be really careful you don’t let a fancy paint job and a nice tonneau make up your mind to spend those hard end bucks!

 

Thanks man - I'll keep that in mind for sure. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about the rear-end and everything. I'm just afraid the guy will want $6,000 or $7,000 bucks for it - because he thinks it's such a good truck - when so much can go wrong with it.