Paint and Body Work on a 1st Gen

Hey everyone,

First post here. I've been on the hunt for a 1st gen for about 3 months now - specifically I'm looking for a 05 or 06 DC 4WD 4.7L.

After watching the market (I live in the Dallas area, TX) for the last 3 months, its kind of dawning on me that I am gonna have a hard time finding the exact 1st gen I want, especially in the color I want, and I'm probably gonna have to be willing to make some sacrifices and put in some elbow grease to turn any 1st gen into the truck of my dreams for the next 20 years. After reading shifty's thesis on buying 1st gens, I am convinced that the truck can't have frame rust, and CAN have over 200k on it as long as things were at least relatively well maintained and I do the LBJs and the timing belt soon after purchase. So as I'm looking at these trucks that come up for sale, lots of them have your general wear and tear expected with a 16 or 17 year old truck. You know - scratches, dents in bumpers, dents in tailgates, failing clearcoat or paint, etc. With that said, I'm kind of coming to the conclusion that I may actually want to find a truck with some cosmetic defects because then I could use that as a negotiating chip on purchase price and use the money saved to have the truck fixed up at a body shop and repainted the color I want it. Seems better than buying a more expensive garage queen with super low mileage (apparently not a good thing) in a color I don't want... Am I crazy to be thinking like that? Does anyone have experience bringing one of these truck exteriors back to life after it was pretty beat up? Any idea how much it costs?

A perfect example: https://tulsa.craigslist.org/cto/d/owasso-2006-toyota-tundra/7606087886.html

Thanks for the knowledge shared! I've enjoyed getting filled in on anything and everything there is to know about these 1st gens before I buy one!

 

sure looks good. Are you on Oahu?

 

If there's no frame rust and the maintenance is up to date, my biggest focus, in order of 'highest priority' to lowest, would be:

• The truck has every must-have option you want (4wd, V8, steering controls, tow package, leather, heated seats, whatever it may be)
• The truck hasn't been in any documented floods, major accidents, etc.
• Any defects in the body and/or paint are something that WON'T require a full repaint to resolve***
• I'd also be hunting for something w/o an aftermarket OR dealer-installed alarm (SECURIKEY+ and KARR, for example)
• ... and to that point of stuff to avoid, I'd dodge trucks with VSC, personally, and anything with the "unicorn" brake M/C

*** For example, since we know all metallic 1GT paints used clearcoat, and that clearcoat ultimately fails, if you can manage to get a truck where the failure is limited to certain panels where you can selectively re-spray to avoid a full paint job which is expensive AF for a decent quality re-spray - like, it's only chipping between the roof rail provisions, only chipping on the fender splash guards, etc. - that's the way to go. Avoid anything that requires a full re-spray!
​

I'm sure others will have input here.

 

Here's the catch - I really would love the phantom grey pearl, but I just don't think I'm gonna find one with all the features I want anytime soon. I've seen maybe one in the last 3 months and It was $33,000. Yikes. So I'm thinking just bite the bullet and get everything else I want, wait a few years and save up and get a full respray in the color I want. I say all this of course having absolutely no idea how much a respray costs... $3000, $5000?

 

I’m a body tech. Highly recommend going to your local shop and getting a quote before you buy something that needs work. A full re-spray on a DC at the shop I work for would be well over 5k. Keep in mind you can’t just paint one panel and expect colors to match if you only want to fix certain panels. All shops will do things differently. My shop requires 14-18” of space between body filler and the the adjacent panel to avoid blending the adjacent panel. Any panel receiving paint will be de trimmed moldings, door handles, lights, flares, windows, bumpers etc. There is Remove and install(R+I) costs for all of those items. Also ask about cost difference between metallic/pearl paints and non.

 

If you are 100% dead set on finding this truck (same as I've got) you will have to be really patient and poised to strike at any moment. Open up your search area and be willing to hop on flight and you will find what you want.

That being said, the gray isn't all that hot. With aging vehicles you can consider yourself lucky to find a truck with every option you want. I'd dissect Shifty's post and say breakdown the the options you really want into scenarios based on pricing. Example being: if if doesn't have an LSD and steering wheel controls - can you live with it at a certain price point and rectify that with $$$...

Each case is a little different depending on ones capabilities, drive and cash available to throw at it. Frame rust, frame damage or any other "major" issue that will go beyond your comfort level (capability, drive or funds available) you gotta avoid - Shifty mentioned floods, accidents...etc

I personally wouldn't avoid a garage queen at all. I wouldn't want to do a color change either. Every vehicle I've ever had to "settle" on accepting the color I eventually came to like or at least not really give a shit any longer once it was mine long enough. I think you're basically on track in that you realize you will have to put elbow grease into it (that includes $$$) and you don't want frame rust (tiny bits of surface rust aside depending on where it hails from).

It'll happen for you.

 

Thanks for the additional input guys.

I'd love to be able to hop on a plane short notice, but honestly that seems like a big investment to look at a truck I may or may not buy - though maybe that's just the reality of trying to find the exact truck I want. I probably can't have my cake and eat it too. Also leaving my wife with 3 kids under the age of 6... Have some of y'all had success flying out to go look at trucks? For some reason I trust craigslist more than Facebook Marketplace, not sure why?

In terms of finding a garage queen - here is the one I've been watching. Just a 3 hour drive to Austin, and I've got plenty of friends to see/other reasons to head down there. Price seems a bit high, but the owner is willing to post pictures of the frame which makes me feel good about it not being a rust bucket. Pretty much has everything I want except it is white. Not a bad thing necessarily especially in the Texas heat all summer, just looks a little fleet truckish, but maybe I just need to accept that. If I get hella rich down the road I can just paint it any color I want. Someday.

https://austin.craigslist.org/ctd/d/austin-2005-toyota-tundra-limited-4x4/7608211892.html

 

Another member here ran a carfax on that and it’s apparently a salvage title.

 

On trucks our age, would most of the clips and trim be likely to break when removing? I've thought about having my truck painted someday but wondered how hard it would be to source all those tiny parts. I assume the body shop takes care of ordering what's needed?

 

If the rest of frame is in this condition, the frame is good to go.

 

This ^^

In my area, $6k-7k is normal for a quality re-spray in the same color. Where my parents lived down in FL, I asked their buddy this weekend who paints for a living and he said he could respray metallic OEM color including door jambs for $2,000-2,500 which covered materials and booth time. The metallic paints - especially the salsa red, apparently - is really f'n expensive. This is why I'm saying, a respray is 'expensive af' up above.

Here's the other catch to what you suggested:

If you do this, it's going to look like shit. Sorry, blunt, but reality. You need to understand, you may find a shop that will spray the door jambs and potentially even remove the bed to spray back of cab and front of bed, no shop on this planet is going to take the time to spray inside the engine bay, the firewall, etc. This isn't a classic vehicle restore. And honestly, nobody is going to remove and replace the door jamb badges/stickers, so if you're OCD on details, about having clean lines, nice stickers with no overspray, etc. then ... you don't want to go this route. And every time you pop a door panel or trim piece off, the mirrors off or whatever, you're going to see the old color.

I can speak from experience: It's not as bad if the original color of the vehicle is black. The firewall and engine bay looks more natural at least.

To find my truck, it took me about 6 months with instant alerts setup on TrueCar, Cars.com, CarGuru with the specific cab/drivetrain type, mileage (sub-150k), and southern-native truck I wanted. Others have gotten lucky on here and stumbled on crazy deals on FB or CL, but ... I'm also the guy who has written about 10,000 product and merchant reviews to be entered to win gift cards at various retailers over the last 15-20 years and I've never one, not once. i.e. I don't bother with the lottery, I'll never win. But I did end up with a really f'n awesome truck due to my patience.

 

I've found out and bought 2 vehicles on 2 occasions. One, a 91 taurus SHO. Bought it and drove back to Amarillo. The other a 21 Aprilia tuono. Flew to Plano to buy it and rode back.

You've got options here. If you find something worthwhile in another area that one of us is located, I'm sure we could look at it for you. I know I wouldn't mind if you found something in the Amarillo area.

 

Shifty - Thanks for the honest words. I've never really had a car painted before, so I'm glad I asked. I would've thought it was kind of no big deal, but quite clearly would have been wrong. I need to set up some auto alerts like you have. But, from the sounds of it, I really ought to try to find a truck in pretty good shape and certainly need to avoid trying to change paint color.

bmf4069 - I hadn't thought of asking other members to look at trucks for me. I guess that could be a big favor to ask, but maybe a dinner or a case of beer would be enough payback. Maybe I'll give that a shot if something great comes up in another area. The main thing I really wouldn't trust a seller on is rust. I feel like you need a set of critical eyes and at least some knowledge to be able to see that.

 

Or just post your finds here on this forum or on this thread if you have questions about "does this look okay or scary"; people here are very frank with their appraisals of what you should spend your money on. I recommend doing what Shifty says and setting some alerts. I only used CL because I don't have other social media and didn't want to eff with creating profiles on other sites, and for that case I recommend using the desktop version rather than the app to CREATE your searches because the app limits your distance to like 250 miles whereas the desktop lets you go I think up to 500. You can then CHECK your searches via the app. I had to run traps for the better part of a year to come across my truck since I travel frequently for work and would often miss trucks I'd otherwise have probably bought. (Will always regret the time I missed a huge Snap-On tool collection in an awesome pro-level tool chest for like $500 some guy said he just "want it out of my garage, it was my dad's and I don't care what it's worth".)

 

Damn. This reminds me, I was supposed to go check out a car for @bmf4069 a couple months back. Sorry about that Breau, I totally forgot

 

All good homie. I don't need another car now. I don't know what I was thinking.

 

Thanks for pointing this out! I'm still figuring out where to post what questions, but this one seems like a good catch all for questions regarding possible purchases.

 

Great Color

I have plenty of experience with the body and paint on my truck. You're looking for Salsa Pearl Red, color code 3Q3. I have a SR5, which came with a chrome rear bumper, side mirror covers, and other chrome accents. When I painted my truck, I opted to color match the chrome. After I had the truck painted, I did a paint color correction, a polish, and then a ceramic coat. If you check out my "Build Page," https://www.tundras.com/threads/2006-double-cab-tundra.67978/page-3#post-2136906 you can see some of the progress and why I painted my truck. Driving through a sandstorm in the desert isn't good for paint.

Cost:
Paint/body work 6K. Minus 4K from insurance.
Buff job with ceramic coat and PPF the hood was about 3K.
Powder coat the wheels $500. Windshield $100 deductible from
insurance.
Front and rear glass $200.
Crying from the amount of money I spent, FREE.

It's a lot of money to spend on an old truck, but there's sentimental value. The truck was gifted to me after my stepfather's passing. So, I plan on keeping the truck until otherwise.
I keep up the maintenance diligently. The truck runs great, and I love it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Good luck on your search.

 

OP - my 2000AC is kinda like that Tulsa truck with failed clear coat on the horizontal surfaces and chips on the front of the hood. It’s in great condition mechanically and essentially perfect in that respect. I’m good with mechanical repairs but suck at body work. Thought about a paint job but as noted $6-7K seems to be right. Wife point out that’s as much as the truck is worth and says I can drive an ugly truck forever. Can’t really fault that logic. Hoping to find a garage kept specimen and then upgrade.

 

Holy Cow This Truck ^^^