I already kind of spilled the beans in another thread, but here's the story
SO THERE I WAS.......
It was about 730 in the morning, the wife and I are getting ready for work, and we hear a decent crash from the front of the house. The wife goes and looks out the window, and tells me that someone had hit my truck. Not believing her, I went and looked for myself, and sure enough some buffoon had hit my parked M1009. What a great way to start the morning!
So I go outside, and talk to the other driver. It's a 16 year old kid who lives down the street. He's upset, but tells me "don't worry, my dad's a cop". If there is a BETTER reason to worry, I'd like to hear it. So his dad shows up, and to his credit was extremely professional about it. He called a different officer to write up the accident report, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Basically what happened was the kid was in a hurry, and didn't clear the windshield off. He was driving down the road like Ace Ventura with his head out the window, and didn't see my truck parked on the right side of the road. He hit pretty hard judging from the damage, and the fact that there were parts from his Jeep about 10' in front of the Blazer. The only think holding his right wheel on was the broken remnants of his steering linkages. Needless to say, a flatbed was required, while the Battle Blazer drove away wounded, but still in the fight.
Long story short, it's time to get the Blazer fixed. I'm still in the process of tracking down parts (thanks to the members who offered help!). I called all the local salvage yards, and none of them have an M1009 (though one yard did just crush one a few weeks ago!). I've got a few leads on the bumper, and the quarter panel looks like it's going to be an LMC buy. I'm still waiting on the insurance company to come check it out, so I'm just in holding right now. The truck is plenty driveable, but I'm still not thrilled about having to deal with this.
With regard to the paint job-- I'm kind of torn about what to do. I've never really had any desire to maintain a military appearance, it just happened to be green. In fact, it was a solid green, with clear coat on the places that weren't rotted out by the sun. I'm not sure what color to paint it now. I'm leaning toward staying solid green, but I'm not sure if I want to go flat green (CARC/similar) or go with something shiny. My #1 concern is durability. The truck sees a lot of brush and I don't want a paint that will easily scratch down to the metal and create a rust hazard. I do like that the sides were somewhat glossy, as it made knocking the mud off of it easier (the mud on the ground in the pics is from when I blasted the heavy stuff off three weeks ago).
Also, what COLOR should I go with? I like the green, and am used to it, but am strongly considering a lighter color, perhaps tan. I fought an uphill battle in the summer for the air conditioner to keep up with the heat, and I think I could help it out with a lighter color. I'm pretty sure I do NOT want to go camouflaged, and I doubt the body shop would paint that anyway, so it will be a solid color. The interior is green, and will remain so.
Ideas?
Oh, and here are the pictures
I figured the bumper would be tough to find, but this is miserable!
I dont know why people cant just pay attention to the road
