Rust in these things is a killer. They go real bad in the roof.
Mine was pretty much rooted when I got it and I put a lot of work in it to sort it out.
You can never actually kill it all off but and am always chasing your tail with it.

Thats encouraging. The assessor put mine down as a market value of $7K so I actually didnt think that was too bad coming from an insurance company.
Fingers crossed it all comes out sweet.

Had an interesting day today.
People learnt that I am not pleasant to deal with when I have the s**t about something and need a little kip after doing an overnighter at work.
Spoke to the insurance company this morning , got rooted around again so got the s**t and went down to grab a part off Troyman and was having a chat to him about it all.
Somehow on the way home I had a brain snap , stormed in the front door picked up the phone and started tearing people new a*** holes.
After a lot of screaming and shouting I managed to convince someone to pull their finger out and get me a payout figure and make it snappy. They came back with a figure of $4900 and the vehicle listed as a writeoff , rego cancelled , but I could keep the salvage. Not good enough.
Went a bit further up the food chain , made a song and dance , threatened to come into their offices and yell and scream and tell customers how crap they are on a claim , then I was going to get a hire car at their expence (which I was actually entitled to do) and threw around a few other random threats about legal action , insurance ombusdman and the media.
Well looks like someone didnt have a brain. I knew none of the things I threatened would happen or even be possible but someone must of got the wind up them or they just wanted me to go away as they were sick of hearing from me.
Was given an offer of a $4900 payout , the vehicle no listed as a write off , the rego maintained and if I wanted to repair it at my own doing it was ok.
I had that all sent to me in an email , the cheque is on the way and the old girl is mine to do with as I wish!
Well it took about 7 minutes after I received that email till the pit crew here at Dodgy Inc Racing got into action.


Have go the front end off it now , will change the bonnet tomorrow afternoon when I have some extra hands here to assist.
Backed off all the body mounts this afternoon and jaked the body up to relieve the stress and pull that back into position. Tightened everything back up , the mounts are within about 1.5mm from where they originally were and all the doors open and close fine so thats sorted.
The chassis rails are kinked up slightly at the front from where the bullbar was pushed back. It is past any alignment points or suspension pickup points but so it does not need to be perfect. The oxy and porta power are coming over in the next couple fo days to straighten that out.
Plan is to get it back to a driveable state for minimal dollars , change a couple of torn lower control arm bushes and then drive it for a little bit to make sure nothing nasty is happening. If there is an issue that cant be resolved well Ill buy a new truck and swap everything over. Fingers crossed it doesnt come to that. Im really hoping I can get the old girl back and running as some transport till I finish the ute and all going well and I dont have any issues with it once the ute is finished , I can then spend the time and money on it it really needs and deserves lately.

A couple of pics of it before it was pulled apart.



The damage really looks like stuff all. It was what was damaged and the price of parts that caused the issues.
Apparantly there is some law that if a bullbar is damaged it cant be repaired by an insurance company it is a new bar straight away.
By the time they quoted on a new bonnet , 2 new guards , grille , corner lights , replacement driving lights , bullbar and labour to paint it all , modify it as required for the bonnet scoop , snorkel and 2" body lift and straighten the front of the chassis it was just a snik under $11K!!!
Adds up quick dont it!

Just a random pic of our camping setup for a bit of motorvation from a trip we went on last year out the back of orange.

Even in the pretty well setup tent up on the queen bed it was a bit uncomfortable at -8 overnight.
Was so happy we we not sleeping on a tent floor on an airbed like the couple next to us!

Wow, thats good news for ya mate. Glad to see things are going your way.

well done mate..
good to see the outcome is a good one...

Thanks guys. It was a busy afternoon thats for sure and I think I have a few more left!
Fingers crossed I can drive it to Livo on Friday. It will look like a patchwork quilt but will at least be running!

Well done Matt, great to see that light at the end on the tunnel was the end of the tunnel for a change.

u should crash into people more often....well at least brake a little

LOL. Yeah I remember you saying earlier that I could come out in front cash wise.
Looks like it might happen if nothing else goes tits up.
Tell ya what but the amount of brain aches and s**t I have given my missus and everyone over the last couple of weeks is just not worth the money!
Its just totally done my head in and I am actually looking forward to going to bed tonight. I might just actually have my first good nights sleep in a couple of weeks finally.

ive always had good experiences when this has happend to me...

i got $1600 for my 89 magna when some idiot telstar P plater ran into it when it was parked out in the street....i couldnt have got $500 for it....I was trying to sell it at the time...

the other time was my AE86 I was trying to sell as well and ended up getting a good insurance payout when some idiot volvo driver turned right in front of me....funny thing was he offered me $2500 and i said id just bought new tyres/shocks/battery and he upped it to $3500 on the spot no questions asked....couldnt believe how easy it was....

Good grief Matt, that was a decent wack there in the front end! Must have nearly turned the other car into a small crushed coke can aye? With a wack like that, you could've smacked your scone on the steering wheel or through the windscreen if it was one of your old EDs. Lucky there. I'd cry if that happened to my car.

I guess the only issue now will be the gaps between the bonnet and front guards and new bull bar??

Yeah Mark it was a fairly good tap. The Civic that wound up in front of me got the C pillar pushed in 18" and half the rear subframe torn out so it was pretty good.
Gaps came out pretty well actually. The front end I got for it certainly isnt the best but it was cheap , and readily available. Just have to decide whether to repair the new front end to tidy it up or track down another one.
The bullbar will need to be revisited as we slightly adjusted (read beat the living s**t) out of the old one to line it back up. The mounts need more work as the right is about 20mm closer to the truck then the left. A new set of bar mounts will fix that.
That can all wait until after Christmas now. I still have a ute pulled apart and need to get that back on the road before I pull something else apart. I was happy to be able to drive it to Livo on Friday night as ugly as it is and I had a ball in it. It was like the feeling I had the first day of driving it once it was all engineered. I didnt realise just how much I love it until I nearly lost it.
Will be getting a few jobs done to the truck to get it pretty much sorted out over the next couple of weeks and then it can wait. There will be big things happening to the old nugget next year but and then it should finally pretty much be finished.
Things to knock off first.
Connect up all the front blinkers etc (need to try and get some globe holders tomorrow)
New UHF antenna and mount
Put a new set of flares all round. Going to splurge this time and buy some proper moulded material instead of using the garden edging.
New set of caster correction bushes in the front.
New upper rear bushes and modified upper arm to clear sub tank on full suspension droop. (Apparantly 6000 rpm lanuches on 4x4 tyres have a habbit of killing bushes......funny that)
40W solar panel on the roof the keep the fridge battery topped up when its parked so I dont have to plug it into the charger when at home.
Was going to go down and get a new set of driving lights until a little birdy told me apparantly Santa is bringing me a set of Lightforce 240mm blitz lights for Chrissy.................

Yeah it will never end but I dont regret a minute of it.

Very happy for you mate....

I better get cracking on that airbox...lol

Catch you soon.......

Daz

Yes mate that is one of the things that I have to put on the list!
How about we add a decent snorkle to it as well............LOL
I really need to pull my finger out and get over to your joint and get the ball rolling there!

hey evil,i've just read this whole thing and i'm very impressed,do you have anynews on how your going with the repairs?