My Truck

I was hit a little over 2 weeks ago in my truck. The guy in the middle lane decided to turn into me instead of using the turn lane like normal people... Let me tell you, if your ins people start apologizing for your behavior & for the rest of us having to deal with you, then you have a problem.
I have had my truck for about 11 years, it is my first car & I love it.

The damage could have been alot worse, but since the bumper was pushed so close to the tire it was unsafe to drive. It sat in our driveway waiting for his ins to accept fault, then waiting on their adjuster to come out & look at the damage. They finally got all their ducks in a row & told us they were declaring it totaled. Of course they are not going to give us enough to buy a decent vehicle to replace it with, and we know my truck runs great & is very reliable. Also, I'm not ready to replace my first car! I told Hubby, you only ever have one first car! :) So Hubby started taking it apart to see what parts need to be replaced.

This is my photo this week for the challenge, theme: Bare minimum. This was the bare minimum we needed to drive to the junk yard looking for parts (thanks to Patrick's daddy for going with us!). We looked rather scary driving I would think ;)

We found out at the junk yard that front end damage is very common... if we had needed a new bed for my truck we could have had our choice, but there were no Ford Rangers out there without worse damage than I already had! So I called my old boss, my sister's current boss, because I remembered he had sent me to a parts house years ago to buy a new taillight. He gave me the name of the place (Thank you Mark!) and they had every part we needed!!!!

So we came back home and started repairs. My job was to hand tools & take pics. Of course it was more like "Give me the 9/32 socket"... "what does it look like?" ... :)

Yikes! That's how much he took off to replace!

Me and my new fender :)

He had to take the rubber guards & the metal brackets off the old bumper and put them on the new bumper, which proved to be quite an ordeal. The right side metal bracket was bent out of shape from the accident. He put a lot of elbow grease into it, and got it straightened out. He's the best!

New bumper :)

It's all coming together!

It's perfect! Hubby saved my truck's life! We will be taking the Ranger decal off the old fender & gluing it to this fender :)

I have the best Hubby in the whole world!