Need some advice... what would you do?

[Jake D]

I recently bought a beater truck, a 91 Ford F150 with 75K original miles off of my old roommate for $425 and its in great shape minus that its in primer. My plan was to spray it some satin color and start driving it more to keep the miles off my car. Plus with gas being around $4 a gallon for the box, the truck seems like a better daily driver.

I haven't had the $ to do maintenance on my 00 S with 52K. I've been wanting to replace the IMS bearing, waterpump, front engine mount, and AOS because I have no record on any of this ever being done. I can't afford a replacement engine so I wanted to start with these few items in order to hopefully prolong the cars life. I have listed the car on Craigslist a couple of times just to see if I got any bites. I don't really want to sell the car but if someone really wanted it, then it might be the best thing for me to do financially.

What my predicament is, is that a guy up the street just offered me $1500 for the truck. I'm debating whether I should sell it in order to a) buy another beater or b) use the $ to buy a few parts for the Boxster.

I know that $1500 may not be a lot of $ to most of you, but with a job loss and now one that pays a lot less than before, I've been barely sneaking by so saving up $ hasn't happened much/at all.

If I sell the truck I was planning on buying the LN IMS bearing and waterpump for starters. I will be doing all my own work and I understand that I should change the clutch out at the same time as the IMS but for now the IMS is more important to me to change and the clutch can wait till I can save more $/ it fails.

My other thoughts on selling the truck and doing the bearing and pump is that if/when I go to sell it, this could help me get top dollar for it and in the mean time I can feel a little more at ease.

So what is your opinion or what would you do in this situation? Sell the truck to buy another car? Sell the truck to buy parts? Or drive the truck, and just try to keep saving for the parts?