Depending on your age, a diesel can last you a lifetime. As you live in NY where the roads are salted, a lifetime for a truck is 10 years on the body (give or take). Rust just gets it sooner than later. Sucks for you, but the north is a great place for southerners to find barely broken in drivetrains for their rust-free bodies. If you want to keep the price down by buying used, I would recommend a GM gasser with a NV4500 standard tranny and a 410 rearend. Not great on gas, but will pull hard and the tranny is one of the best. You can also find 8.1 liter bigblocks with the alison tranny. The 8.1 or 496 is a strong guzzler that provides tire shredding torque but does tend to use oil right out of the factory. The alison is one of the best auto trans made bar none. If you go small block I prefer the 5.7 or 6.0. The 5.3 is a good runner too. I have a 94 CK3500 with the 454 and a NV4500 with 410 gears. All the torque you could want down low, but underpowered at higher speeds. You can tow a load effortlessly up to 55mph. It just isn't designed for speed. Mine has 40K on it and not a spec of rust, looks brand new. I love the older squared body style. If I wanted it to be other than it is I'd drop a crate 502 in it or build the 454 that sits in it now. The build would entail throwing everyting away but the block and crank. Crime with such low miles.