Im gonna pass then... You guys know more than I do. I really dont want to mess with all that rust. My first intentions was to buy a car from the south and have it shipped up here and this one just so happen to pop up local to me.
I'm confused, did you end up buying it or not?
To me, that looks like about the same amount of rust that mine has. Is there rust that needs to be addressed, absolutely. Does it look like it will fail any time soon? Probably not.
If you do buy it, I would definitely address it though as I'm doing with mine. I think too many people see any amount of rust and they automatically assume it's a total loss. There are so many variations of how serious the rust is, the only way to really tell is to grind it away and see how the base metal looks. If you start grinding and just more and more rust appears, then you are in trouble (kinda). What I have found with mine is on face value, especially to those who live out west, mine looks terrible. In reality though (after starting to address it), it is not bad at all. It truly is outer surface rust that just needs to be knocked off, cleaned up and re-sprayed.
My gas tank shield looked just like this one (terrible). After about 20 minutes of grinding and cleaning, the base metal is perfectly fine. I spray a couple of coats of rust reformer on it and it is as good as new.
Having said all that, I would have never paid 7k for a truck that did need a lot of rust to be addressed. I'm only doing it on mine because I got the truck for free from my brother minus the $1,000 I paid to have it shipped back to Wisconsin. I'm in it about $2300 now and its awesome! I still have more rust to address but the frame is still VERY solid. Every weekend I'm addressing another area and eventually the whole underside will be cleaned up and restored. I will have no problem getting many years out of it well before the frame ever becomes an issue.
Good luck either way!