Welp, on top of all this I may be getting a job that pays $6 more an hour. Harsh shift, 6pm to 6am texas two step style but the money is worth it.

I stopped by the body shop yesterday to take a peek and I liked all I saw. I got some pictures I will upload tonight after my interview. Things are looking up, might be able to treat the truck to something nice if the new job pans out lol.

 

Here are those pictures. It's coming along nicely.

Tailgate: The ding in the middle is from me backing into my hemi water pump pulley before the swap, when it was on the stand lol. They talked me into doing the whole bed... it was originally just the passenger bedside. But they saw the terrible job someone did on the drivers side respray (before I owned the vehicle) and said they want to do the whole thing, including the tailgate and fixing the rollpan up professionally.

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Drivers door: This was from flying debris during my bout with the ditch. It was a decent sized ding.

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Bedside welds: They filled and finished all the spot welds, something the factory didn't even do. The fit is perfect, an added benefit of getting MOPAR sheet metal for double, sometimes triple the price. NO ONE makes a bedside for our trucks, so expect a sticker price of $800+ for the part if anyone else has the unfortunate circumstance.

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Hood: Another victim of huge flying debris during the ditch encounter. Poor picture... too much backlighting.

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Fender: The tab was bent upward and cracked the paint so they had to sand and seal it. It wasn't too bad and would have been fine if rust wasn't a concern. They went the extra mile here.

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Bedsides: Even MOPAR sheet metal has it's flaws, so spots needed to be knocked down and some raised. Then there's the drivers side which was horribly redone in a past life.

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T&A, my truck's naked posterior

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Went again today and grabbed more pics.

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On this one, you see they noticed so edge curling from the door hitting things when opening. Previous owner wasn't too nice to the body of this truck. Another good thing about this body shop, finicky as ****.

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More hood imperfections they found during scuffing

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No more ugly plastic bumper for me!

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Media blasted the rollpan inside and out, they will seam seal it and knock down the small welds left from Sir Michael's.

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Old sheet metal...

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Well, wonder how long I would have had until it ate through my fender.

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Well, the work has been all done for a while now. I'm completely back up and running and have been to a few races, beat my best time with some slicks. 14.9 is now my record. I'll have some pics soon. Truck looks pretty funny with 19lb procomp 0 offset wheels on slicks I tell ya what lol

 

Lets see some pics of the completed truck!

 

Waiting very impatiently for those pictures!

 

holy crap, sorry guys! lol. Ok, right away.

 

Ok, sorry I don't have a camera roll of pics taken to show the paint job, just some randoms since the work was done.

Here's the truck at the strip with the Hoosiers I picked up, shaved .3 off my time in 80 degree morning air, and come October it was .4 faster than that. 14.5 was my best so far.

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Me parked next to my brother in law at my new job (love this job!)

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Park in the back of golds gym and the nice vehicles swarm me. The Ram was just trying to show off I'm sure.

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Finally got a true hidden hitch with spring loaded plate bracket. Hitch access is behind the plate.

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And the bitch that makes my Dakota jealous... but it's ok. She's put away for the winter to undergo drivetrain surgery (1000hp trans, 1400hp shaft back)

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