Thoughts on a body swap

[Dawson81]

 
Hello everyone I tried to upload a photo of my 81 I'm not sure if it worked or not, but anyways a customer at work brought us an 86 f150 lariat for a no start, to make a long story short the motor is shot and he doesn't have the money to go any further the body and interior is absolutely perfect no rust or anything it's a 2wd chassis long bed efi 5.0, I'm considering buying it and swapping the cab and bed onto my chassis I really can't use anything else off of it due to it being efi gas tanks fuel lines etc.. is it worth it for just the body if I give him 900$ ?

[grumpin]

I would try lower at first, say $500, see what happens.

Good interior parts and rust free parts are good to find though.

[Gary Lewis]

I agree.  $900 is too much.  I bought a running truck for $650, although the body wasn't as good as the one you described.  And I bought a couple out of fields  that weren't running for $200 and $250.

You don't know what else is wrong with the truck, so I'd start at $500 and go up from there, being happy if I got it for $650 to $700.

And I say "happy" 'cause the body and bed, plus maybe the interior, are hard to find any more in that shape.  Go for it!  Use the body and bed and part the rest out on here.

[FuzzFace2]

What you are going to do about the VIN on the cab not matching the frame  VIN?
Could have issues getting plates or even to sell when the buyer cant get plates because the VIN's don't match.

Beside swapping the cab you will have to swap the wiring harnesses between the trucks as they will be different. Newer truck will have a computer and yours does not so the wires will come thru the fire wall in different places and will have holes left over in the good cab.

I did a cab off frame rebuild and swapped wiring harnesses but I had the same year & motor / trans trucks to do the swap with and was a lot of work.
Just think you are going between years and different fuel (motors & trans?) system can be a lot more work than I went thru.
Dave ----

[Dawson81]

I'm with you there I've been reading the year to year differences the main thing that was stopping me was the fuel tanks and lines because those are the two pieces I need most aside from a clean bed with a tailgate on it

[Dawson81]

I had the idea of putting freeze plugs in the 5.0 in that truck just to make it run and put my trucks cab and bed on it and selling it but like fuzzface2 said the VIN won't match I'm not exactly scared of the wiring process because I've done a few wiring harnesses in the past

[Gary Lewis]

My understanding is that auto body shops can change the VIN tags.  And supposedly they can get the right rivets.  At least that's what my paint/body man told me.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I have 'a friend' who may (or may not) have ground the rivets off on the back and JB Welded the whole thing back onto the cab flange....

You can see the F450 cab (in Mercedes gray) sitting in the midst of his "collection"  

[Dawson81]

It ain't crazy if it works 😂