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New Project - 2012 F150 XTR Rebuild

12K views 88 replies 11 participants last post by  paintballdude05 
#1 ·
This isn't an LH project, but some might find it interesting to follow.

The time has come to replace my trusty 2008 F150 that I purchased back in 2013 from a family member. With over 340k KM's ( 215k miles) I was planning on putting some money into it this year to fix up the rusty body as well as take care of some mechanicals. However, after looking over the body a bit closer last weekend it appears as though last winter has really taken a toll on the cab. The rocker panels are in very rough shape and would require a large amount of repairs (which means big $$). This coupled with the mechanical repairs and the rest of the body work required has convinced me to go down a different path.

I'm going to be trying something that has tempted me for some time now and that's purchasing a vehicle from a COPART auction. COPART specializes in auctioning off vehicles that were involved in accidents for insurance companies. If you've had a vehicle written off by your insurance company, there's a chance it went on the block at a COPART Auction.

Anyways, I've been looking around at the listings available here in Canada and it appears as though Alberta is ground zero for trucks (not really surprising considering it's the oil patch). Last week I bid on, and won a Blue 2012 Ford F150 that was up for bid in Edmonton. The truck was involved in a front end collision however the airbags didn't deploy and the rest of the truck looks to be in good shape. I've got a shipper picking up the truck early next week and it should be at my place by the end of next weekend.

Quick Features:
- SuperCrew with a 6.5' box
- 5.0l Coyote V8
- 6 Speed Auto
- 4x4
- XLT Trim with the XTR Package
- 18" Chrome Wheels
- Towing Package















Some close-up's of the damage.







The plan is to fix this truck up to as good as new (if not better). It will be making a trip to the frame rack to ensure everything is still strait. If it isn't, I'll get the shop to bring it back to factory specs. I'm also looking at maybe picking up another truck from COPART to donate parts to this project. I'm hoping to find a higher trim level truck that I could swap a leather interior and centre console shift with. I'll be updating the thread as I go along!
 
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#3 ·
Haha I saw this truck come up and I just decided to jump in and see. It would be nice to see a history of auction prices in order to get an idea of what they usually go for and to know if I'm overpaying or not. However, I think I made out okay on this one. Even if it takes $5k+ to fix I'm still going to be into it for $10k cheaper than buying a similar truck on the open market.
 
#5 ·
Thanks, I'm excited for it to get here so I can get going on it!

The truck got picked up today by the shipper from the auction yard. He's supposed to head out for my place tomorrow evening and should make it here by this weekend. He sent me some pictures of the truck after he picked it up, luckily it's still looking the same as in the auction pictures including the tonneau cover!











 
#6 · (Edited)
So the truck showed up last night in good shape. I was a bit late getting home but the guys that delivered it had already pulled the truck off the trailer and parked it when I got there. It was a father-son duo which were very nice and professional, I'll be using their services again if I'm grabbing another truck from that area. Here's a picture they sent me when they entered Ontario with it.



I haven't gotten a lot of time to take a thorough look at it, but I did run it for 10 minutes or so and it sounded good. One of the coolant hoses have been compromised though since it was pushed into the engine. It's leaking coolant so that will have to be replaced fairly quickly. Cosmetically, it's pretty much what I expected. The interior is pretty dirty but overall in good shape from what I was able to see. I believe the truck belonged to a contractor since the interior had some deck screws in one of the door pockets and the bed had a few building materials in it. One pleasant surprise is that the bed has a spray-in bed liner. I also found the fog lights and one good headlight that was left in the bed under the tonneau cover along with what remains of the front bumper. The tires and wheels look to be in good shape too with the body having very little to no rust!

There is damage to the passenger front door that I wasn't really expecting, it was hard to see in the photos but the door is creased and closes funny. I believe that the accident pushed both aprons towards the passenger side and this pushed the passenger fender into the door. It looks like somebody then forced the door open and in doing so bent the front part of the door and the fender. The door also seems like it has some worn pins or something since it doesn't close right, this might mean the door hinge area of the cab has moved some, I'll have to look into it to see for sure. The rest of the body (apart from the apparent front end damage and door) is in good shape. The only other damage that I could see is a dent in the rear bumper and a scratch just above it, not a big deal.

The frame doesn't look too bad though from the little bit of time I had to look at it. The drivers side frame horn is definitely bent, but the passenger side looks okay. It will need some new radiator cross members/supports for sure though, those are toast. I probably won't have time to take a closer look at it until Monday evening now since I'm out of town. In the meantime, here are a few pictures I took quickly this morning.















Bent passenger frame horn.

 
#7 ·
After work I met with the owner of a local shop that specializes in Ford trucks. He's mostly a repair shop be he also has a bunch of parts trucks. He has pretty much everything I'll need to fix up my truck up minus a fender and possibly a door (if required). He even has a set of fender aprons/rails that are in the same color as my truck and ready to be removed as well as lower radiator cross member.

When I got home I measured the trucks wheelbase very quickly. I went from the centre of the front wheel to the centre of the rear one on both sides. I know this isn't a very scientific way of doing it, but I ended up getting a measurement of 157.5" on the left side, 157" on the right. This would make sense with the front of the frame being pushed towards the right hand side. Hope this doesn't mean the whole front section of the frame is twisted over, who know's though.

I also took a closer look at the passenger side doors to see what was happening. It appears as though the front door has been pushed back by some distorting of the cab where the hinges mount, I believe the upper mount is to blame. I'm going to have to spend some more time looking into this to see what's going on, hopefully it isn't too bad.

On a good note, it appears as though the passenger side headlight is still in good shape as well as both fog lights, one mounting bracket and both tow hooks. Anyways, here are a few more pictures of the truck.















Damage to the hood's striker mounting location, I believe this is easily repaired vs. replacing the whole hood.



The only real damage to the rear of the truck, it's a fairly easy fix (aka new bumper)

 
#8 ·
I was able to get the box cleaned out over the weekend so I can store some parts while I work on the truck. I took out about 150lbs worth of dirt, clay, rusty nails and garbage. I would have liked to wash it out but it was too cold out. It appears as though paint or something else stained the bed purple too, hopefully I can get that out.



Once I was done with that, I pulled the innder fender and fender on the passenger side. The foam near the door really turned this into a pain since it didn't want to let go. The drivers side fender should go a little bit better now that I know where to cut the foam. Here's how far I got before I got snowed out.







Here are a few shots of the front passenger door that's now out of alignment, I'm hoping it will go back into place once the front structure gets moved back to where it was.







Now that I've had a chance to fully access all the damage to the truck, I think I've got a game plan as to how I'm going to get repairs done. I have made a list of all the major parts I'm going to need and the next step is going to be getting the frame inspected by a shop. I have a feeling my frame is pretty tweaked though. If it can't be repaired or the repairs are too expensive, I'll most likely end up doing a complete frame swap on the truck. I have a line on a good frame so that might be the way to go even though it'll be a lot of work. On the plus side, it would give me a chance to go over the whole truck with a fine tooth comb.
 
#12 ·
I had some time Sunday to work on the truck before I once again got snowed-out. I pulled the front bumper mounts off the frame rails along with the "splash guard" and the tow hooks, that went really smooth. I then started to pull the fender and inner fender off which wasn't too bad either, but the damn foam makes it a pain to get things apart without bending metal. I was planning on getting two new fenders anyways so it's not a huge deal.

Once that was done, I tried straitening part of the lower rad support with the winch on my ATV. That didn't go as planned though since 3500lbs wasn't enough to move it. I guess I'll have to use a come-along attached to my 2008 in order to get things moving. I figured I would have enough pulling power with the ATV since that part is pretty thin metal but I was wrong!

I also put my scanner tool on the truck to see if I can track down what was going on with my brake light being on. I got B1676 (Battery Pack Voltage Out Of Range) and C1250 (Yaw Rate Sensor Signal Fault). The B1676 seems to be related to the brake light issue, I'll have to take a closer look at the ABS module wiring connector to see if there is if sustained any damage in the collision. Part of the upper frame was pushed into the module but I haven't taken much time to inspect it.

The next step will be to bypass and remove the radiator so that the truck can be moved to the frame shop. The lower rad hose has a nick in it from contacting the serpentine belt so it's leaking a bit. I'm going to rig up the upper rad hose so that it feeds right back into the lower rad hose. The engine should stay cold enough for the trip and I'll use the cabin heater to help cool it down. I think that I'll also be pulling the condenser out in order to make some more room up front.









A picture of the passenger side frame horn, it's bent pretty badly but I have hope that once both sides are straitened out the rest of the frame will go back into spec. If that happens, I can go ahead and just replace the horns instead of the whole frame.

 
#13 ·
Dude - some ******* Engineering on that drivers frame side might be able enough to pull it back into place. But as you said - the horn replacement is the next option.
 
#14 ·
I can probably get the upper rails back into place with some ******* Engineering. The frame rails though would require some serious pulling power. I'll leave that up to the pro's to figure out so I don't make worst than it already is.
 
#16 ·
Yep the horns are welded in. They extend right up to the first cross member, you can see the seam in the last picture. They're about $200 per side so it's not too bad. According to Ford, the horns shouldn't be straightened and put back into service. They need to be replaced if they are bent. However, the frame guy should straiten them out first before the replacement is done so the rest of the frame goes back into place.
 
#17 ·
A bit of progress, but things are going slow. In the last few weeks I got the truck nearly ready to go to the body shop to get the frame inspected. The last thing left to do is to give the whole truck a good wash. I have removed the radiator cross-member/ support, the radiator and the condenser. I then bypassed the radiator so that the engine could run without it installed.

I used parts of the original damaged lower rad hose, an old rad hose from a Chrysler 300M, an elbow, a coupling and some hose clamps to make the following contraption.



You can see the transmission cooler that had to be reconnected after the radiator was gone. I lost a bi of fluid so that will be addressed once the truck is done. These transmissions are sealed and seem to be a pain to check the fluid level and refill.



And pretty much ready to go!



I'm still waiting for my vehicle title (ownership's/ pink slip) to arrive and this is my hold up right now. Apparently they ship out within 30 days of the vehicle being purchased, it's been over a month now. Even if that's 30 working days that will be up by the end of this week. I have contacted AutoBidMaster and they keep telling me it should arrive soon. It's just something else to look out for if you want to attempt something similar.

Yesterday I went and checked out a 2010 F150 King Ranch that was being parted out locally. Somebody took the whole front end before I got there though, minus the front fenders. The engine is blown and it only has 60k miles on it, it looks pretty rough. The seats would need some TLC and would need to be redyed. I asked him how much he wants for what's left of the truck and he said $4k without the box and tailgate. If I went this route, it would get me a good frame and the front frame/aprons that I need to repair my truck (and the fenders of course). On the plus side I could also get the interior to swap into my truck with the heated/cooled seats, but I'm not sold on the King Ranch leather look. Anyways I'm thinking it over, but it probably makes more sense to just buy the parts I need vs. a whole truck. I'm running out of space and my place is starting to look a bit junk yard like.

Here's a comparison:

2010 F150 King Ranch Interior





Now if I mix and match my black interior with some of the 2010 KR accents I could get the look of a 2013 KR.





I like this look a lot more than the Sandstone based interior but I think it still looks a bit gaudy. The other option would be to dye the seats a completely different color but I'm taking the risk of ruining them doing that.

Anyways, that's all I have for now!
 
#18 ·
These transmissions are sealed and seem to be a pain to check the fluid level and refill.
depends on the tranny. some are a small screw in dipstick that is short and replaced the hole where the tube went. access from underneath.
and the other is through a drain hole in the pan. when running and up to temp, remove the small centre plug and inject oil until it drips out. the pan is now at the proper level.
 
#19 ·
I'll have to look it up in the FSM, I was just browsing Ford forums and folks haven't been to happy with the no dipstick move on this generation of truck. I think I'll get a transmission fluid flush done once it's on the road though.
 
#22 ·
No real material progress on the truck, everything is basically on hold until I can get the truck registered here in Ontario. The truck was sold with a Bill of Sale only, no tittle or registration. I have tried to register it with only this information but it's proving to be very difficult since the ministry is reluctant to do so. I have to provide a paper trail showing the ownership of the vehicle from the insurance company, to my broker, and then to me. The problem is they want to see a Consignment Agreement between COPART and the Insurance Company saying that they were authorized to auction the vehicle. I've been trying to get this letter from COPART through my broker but they don't seem to want to give it up. On top of that, I had to get a weight slip from a scale which showed the total weight of the truck (since Alberta doesn't indicate the weight of a vehicle when it's registered) and a Vehicle Information Report from the Alberta Government to prove that it was actually registered there. If I can't get a copy of the Consignment Agreement I'll have to explore some other ways of completing this project.
 
#24 · (Edited)
No nothing yet, the broker (AutoBidMaster) is trying to get documentation I need from COPART but that doesn't seem to be working out. If I don't get anything by tomorrow, I'm going to try a different government office in hopes that they'll work with me on this. I'm hoping to have the tittle in hand by the end of the week so I can get this thing to the body shop once and for all!

Over the weekend I hand washed the exterior of the truck and got it cleaned up. I also rinsed out the seams and hidden areas under the box to rid it of all the sand that was trapped under there. Moisture gets trapped up there and that's where a lot of the rust issues with these trucks come from. I also notice some stone chip damage on the rear quarters of the box so those will have to be touched up too.

I got a good deal on a pair of 2014 XLT chrome grills over the weekend. The one with the blue oval has some really bad chrome bubbling issues on the outside trim while the other one without the badge has one very small spot. My plan is to strip the chrome off the surround, and paint it body color (Flame Blue) to give it a custom look and reduce the amount of chrome on the truck. I'm not sure what I'll do with the second grille, I'll probably keep it as a backup for now.



Looking around last night I was able to find a picture of a guy with a Flame Blue truck that did what I'm looking to do with the same style grille.

 
#25 · (Edited)
#27 ·
#29 ·
I've got my ownerships! After a bit of back and forth with a different office I finally got an Ontario tittle issued in my name. I had to pay taxes once again but I'm not really bothered by it after all I've been through to get this far. The next step will be to pick a shop that can do the major body repairs as well as perform a salvage vehicle inspection on behalf of the government. I have one in mind, I just got to go see them to make sure they'll play ball with me and that they do good work. Stay tuned!
 
#30 ·
So I had a good talk with the body shop that was my first choice, they seem reasonable and knowledgeable when it comes to the rebuild process. My next obstacle will now be getting the original damage estimate from the Insurance company that declared the truck a total loss. This estimate must be included in the rebuild file, there's no way around it apparently. I called up the insurance company and the adjuster was able to track it down but he won't release it to me citing confidentiality reasons. He was going to escalate the matter to his manager to see what they could do but they still haven't gotten back to me about it. I'm giving them until Monday to get back to me before I bug them. If that doesn't work, I'll try my local insurance representative to see if he could help. Hopefully I can leverage my position as a new customer (I just switched car insurance to the same company) to get what I need, fingers crossed!

After talking to the body shop, they explained that they will probably blend into the front doors and the hood in order to get a good paint match. With that in mind, I decided to remove all the door handles to make it easier for them and I will also be prepping them so they can be painted body colored. I'm also going to be removing the tailgate handle as well as the mirror caps to get those color matched as too. Lastly, I'm contemplating on buying a set of factory style fender flares and getting those painted body colored before installation.

The interior panels were removed to get the exterior handles off and I have decided to leave them off for now and give them a good cleaning outside the truck. In doing so, I discovered that the drivers door window was replaced at some point in time since it's no longer Ford glass. The installers did a number on the splash shield so I'm going to look into replacing that. The seats and floor carpet will be making their way out of the truck for a thorough cleaning. I'm an interior clean freak so this is the most effective way of getting things really clean. Also, if I have the time I'll try some sound deadening tricks on the doors and other parts of the interior to quite things down a bit.











 
#32 ·
Well more positive news, I got the damage estimate finally thanks to my Broker. The insurance company was playing hardball citing confidentiality reasons. It was starting to look like I was going to have to ask the truck's former owner for some help (which I really didn't want to do) but my broker actually came though.

Going over the estimate, I saw some stuff I missed in my original list as well as parts that I'm deeming as still being good but they wanted to replace. In my opinion, their estimate was pretty padded with the grand total coming in at just over $15k in damages. It was a pretty equal split between parts and labor. I'm confident I can get the truck fixed for less than half of that by doing a lot of the work as well as sourcing used parts vs. brand new. I'm going to have to get the truck over to the body shop for them to give me a solid estimate of what they're going to charge me to do the work, I'm hoping to do that next week.

Now that I'm confident in my shopping list I went and visited the guy that I will be buying most of my parts from. It looks like he will have pretty much everything I need in used parts and whatever I'll need to buy new he can probably hook me up through a sweet discount deal he gets with one of the dealers in town. He's interested in the build since he's never gone through the process of rebuilding a salvage vehicle so it's a bit of a win-win.

I'm currently in a bit of a dilemma that I'm hoping to get some opinions on. The truck currently has/had chrome bumpers front and back. I obviously need to replace the front bumper and the right end cap on my rear bumper has a small dent that's bugging me so I want to replace that too. I have the option of getting a painted front bumper for cheap and getting it ready for paint for roughly the same price as a half decent chrome one. Finding a good chrome bumper is near impossible from what I've been able to gather, painted ones are more common. The total cost to paint the two bumpers once prepped is probably $200 or so for the pair since they'll be shooting the body color on the truck at the same time. So I guess the question is, Paint to Match front and rear bumpers vs. a chrome set?!



It's starting to look up, and I think it'll work out. I got good news in regards to the price and availability of the parts (see above), now the next unknown is what the body shop will charge.
 
#33 ·
Well I went a bit crazy this weekend with Kijiji shopping while I was out of town visiting the GF's family. The guy I'm getting parts from said he'd trade head lights and tail lights for the parts I need for the truck. While being in the GTA, headlights don't fetch nearly as much as they do back home so I picked up whatever I could get my hands on. I have one passenger side light with my truck so I now have 4 complete sets of headlights. I also picked up a bunch of tail lights, 2 are no good anymore though unless I fix them up. I'll probably end up trading in two sets of headlights and the tail lights for my parts. I'm going to keep two sets of head lights for myself, one factory and one that I will eventually modify with projectors. Oh, and I picked up an OEM bug deflector for cheap, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that.

 
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