Trying to make an old man's 96 ECSB somewhat cool

Had the ole truck for a little over 2 years. Bought from the original owner for $3k with 163k miles. Aside from a few scratches and dents, it's a super clean truck and has never seen dirt or mud or anything. Driven back and forth to work and now school for it's whole life so it has 180k miles now. Been slowly doing small, necessary modifications, but I just don't really have money to drop into this thing to get it to where I want it to be, so this will be an incredibly slow build. I'm not a total idiot so I know how to do some things, but I would love some expert opinions and advice on where I should go from here. Constructive criticism is always nice.bI make trips to junkyards all over North Louisiana getting misc. parts to fix stuff when it breaks, and I always have new ideas on how to make this truck better. Figure I should post some pictures so here ya go

Day I got her:



Dumb funny mod I did with an old baby doll head, a drill, red LEDS, and trailer light harness:



Last time I did a detail:






Aaaaand the transformation after the shackles were installed:


So that's about it! A pretty clean slate for modification and learning how to do new things. Comments and criticism are welcomed and appreciated, and I'm looking forward to building this truck with all of your help!

I've certainly thought of lower, but right now, a lowered daily driver doesn't sound too appealing. In time it might grow on me

I think I might've put the pictures in there correctly now... Lol sorry about that. And if I were to remove tips, what should I do instead?

Trevor F said:

baby doll head is creepy. lol. Id atleast lower it a few inches. Remove molding, tips and vent visors. Rollpan. Colormatch everything bumper,grille,handles etc.

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Definitely debadging and demolding next. I'm pretty sick of all that plastic and chrome and stuff. If I lower it, it'll probably be only 1-2 inches. Don't want much lower just yet. Rollpan would look good but I don't wanna remove the back bumper because of the hitch assembly. Need the hitch to pull boat trailer, so it would look super gay with just a roll pan IMO

Ginger said:

just a note, bumper molding cannot be taken off without leaving a bunch of holes in the bumper.

the rest is just double sided tape

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Yeah I've taken the front bumper apart before to take off the front license holder and I've seen the holes. Should I just invest in smooth bumpers and then color match them or what? And also, would taking the trim off leave any marks or make the paint not match? Wondering if I would have to blend the paint after taking all the moldings off...

Khaos said:

Looks like a clean truck! Plans sound good

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Thanks man!

Thanks man! Appreciate it!

Plans for weekend:
Debadge, demold, locate new grille and smoothie front bumper.
I plan to color match front and rear bumpers so I was wondering how hard it is to prep chrome bumpers to be painted. Also, if I color match front bumper, should I go ahead and color match the grille? AND finally, would it be cheaper to get the paint mixed up and paint these things myself or to have someone else paint it for me?

So basically I should just bite the bullet and buy a paintable smoothie online instead of picking up a chrome one from the junkyard....