What to do with $100 S-10

So apparently I'm back in the box S-10 business. A little background-in the 90s my best friend and I started Allstar Hotrod & Autobody. We both had 1st gen (only gen when we started!) S-10s and needed parts. Thanks to swap meets and The Bargain News it was cheaper to buy complete trucks and part them out. This led to a string of 60+ parts trucks, several V8 swaps, one pro-street, and more than a few daily drivers. It's safe to say I could put one together in my sleep.

Fast forward to Thursday and a customer is mounting some tires for my current DD 92 extended cab and he mentions he needs to get a 91 pickup gone ASAP. I asked how much and he said $100. Picture a 40 year old bearded man with big cartoon eyes with dollar signs in them and you know what my face looked like. He is a nice guy with money problems (he lives in a converted school bus-still not sure if that is sad or berkeleying awesome) who traded 4 used tires mounted and balanced for $50 off his tool bill he pays $5 per week on. Seeing it today with the AAA driver it was less than cherry, but for the price I can't complain.

So now it is in my garage thawing out. Pics tomorrow, probably. It is a 4.3 auto with a supposedly bad fuel pump. Rusty cab corners and rockers, light hit in LF, bed rotted and bent, back slider broken, and he wants the chrome Buick ralleye wheels back. BUT I have everything I need to fix it from my Challenge Build parts truck, including a 1/2 full tank with a new fuel pump in it-same part number on Rock Auto even!

The issue is time. I ain't got none. Running my own business takes too much time as it is, and I was planning on dedicating whatever free time I got to getting the Chevette mobile and playing with my new puppy. So as I see it I have a few options:

1. Scrap it. Quick, easy, and I'd likely double my money, but at the cost of my last AAA free tow.

2. Quick fix. Get it running and nothing else. $500-$700 doing nothing but a fuel pump. ASSuming that's really all it needs to be moveable.

3. Fix it sorta right. This involves swapping the best parts between three trucks onto my DD, and the best of whats left onto this truck. This may or may not involve a rattle can primer job and some lowering. Basically what I would do if keeping it short term. Would be a cool summer driver if it doesn't sell right away. More money but mostly more time. This approach has served me well in the past, but I had much more time back then.

Each choice has its own pros and cons, but I'm leaning towards option 3, just because I have most of the parts and I know what to do. Also I can't stand not fixing things. It's a weakness.

Any thoughts (or offers to buy, hint hint) appreciated.

Fix it, and teach your dog to drive it.

Challenge build. (duh.)

mini spool and nitrous lots of donuts

dropstep wrote: mini spool and nitrous lots of donuts

weld the spiders and nitrous.. it's cheaper..

Cheaper and moar kablooie!

well, yeah, duh...

toss in tank with good pump, sell it to someone who needs a running truck for 600.

Do you have a school (high school, college, or church) that would be interested in building a challenge truck with your business if you gave them the truck as their starting point?

Someone up north needs to develop a spec s10 ice racing series. 2wd s10s, non studded snows, helmets and neckrolls. Setup would consist of sand and kitty litter placement.

Some sand in the bed, non-studded snows, and a bit of left foot braking had my 5-speed 2.8 S-10 going up hills that stopped most 4x4s in the winter.

In reply to Junkyard_Dog:

I had a couple different 2wd S10's when I lived in WI. A 82 2.8V6 4speed LWB and a 92 2.8V6 5 speed SWB. Yes, with weight in the back and snow tires they were excellent in the snow.

What we did with ours...

Either option 2 or challenge build.

Klayfish wrote:

Now I want to do that only drive it on the street. I wonder where I can score a free boat....

DAMMIT STOP PUTTING BAD IDEAS IN MY HEAD!

Option 4. Sell it to one of us for $200 with more time to make it a Challenge or LeMons racer.

Mr_Clutch42 wrote: Option 4. Sell it to one of us for $200 with more time to make it a Challenge or LeMons racer.

Possibly. Is that an offer?

I really want to see what all it needs first. Plus it would need to be $300 with the wheels and tires I'm putting on it.

E36 M3ty weather and work have kept me out of the garage until today. Jacked it up to look it over before connecting the battery to diag. the fuel pump and found a missing starter. If the PO doesn't come up with it I'll grab one from pull a part tomorrow.

Looking at Craigslist the cheapest S-10 is $700, with worse looking ones (by the time I'm done, this one looks bad right now) going for up to $2500. I feel a build thread coming on...

if you weren't so far away i'd tell a friend of mine to buy this truck from you... he's looking for a cheap 2wd Xcab (is this one an Xcab??) S10 to swap a 5.3 into and is willing to go up to about $500 for just a rolling shell with a clean title.. i think he actually wants a newer body style one, but cheap is cheap and the swap would be the same..

NOT Xcab. My DD is, but I paid $1500 for a rust free one, so $500 is a bit low.

Tell him good luck with the search. Whenever I lament how much work mine needs (to be perfect, it really is OK as, I'm just anal) I do a CL search and realize I got a great deal.

a buddy of mine sold an 89 extended cab 2.5 truck with some bondo in it for 1500 not long ago. square bodies are getting hard to find anywere near clean

dropstep wrote: a buddy of mine sold an 89 extended cab 2.5 truck with some bondo in it for 1500 not long ago. square bodies are getting hard to find anywere near clean

Yet the cab corners are $19 each and the rockers $29 each. I'm buying corners and using the unrusted portions of parts truck #1 to fix the only rot on this one. I'm no body man but I'm pretty sure even a half-assed job will add $500 in value.

I have a solid ex-cab square body S10, just some surface rust. It's a bare, rolling shell. Really bare, like no windows or steering column it, bare. I have just about all the pieces for it though. The body is also unbolted from the frame.

I'd like to see someone else make it go fast.

Good haul at the junk yard this morning. If it runs today I'll start a build thread. Mostly because my garage is too full for pictures right now, and the only way to take any is to drive it out.

Junkyard_Dog wrote: Possibly. Is that an offer? I really want to see what all it needs first. Plus it would need to be $300 with the wheels and tires I'm putting on it.

No, I need to find a diesel car for a DD first. Plus, my Camaro is front-heavy enough as it is! However, I would be willing to co-drive it for LeMons next year.