Re: New here, loaded question
 

some of those CL listings I'd most definitely shy away from. I would want to buy a running truck to begin with and like so many others stated, look around a lot. you'll start seeing where the common problems are.

Re: New here, loaded question
 

My perspective is the same as most here. Buy the most rust-free truck you can find, but I'll add some dollar values based on recent experience.

Almost any complete AD truck is worth $1500 to $2000.

To replace cab corners, bottom of the a pillars, door bottoms, floorboards and straighten out the sheet metal to primer at the going hourly labor rate today is $8-10k.

So to have a solid foundation to do what you want with the drive train and other stuff is going to cost you between $10 and $12K

If I were to do it all over again, I'd look for trucks less than $10K with as perfect sheet metal as I could find. This is for a truck you'd do with a good paint job.

If you want to go the patina route and all you want is rust free but not dent free I'd lower the max amount to about $6K

Just my two cents

Re: New here, loaded question
 

+1 what e015475 said.