How much should I expect to pay for a fairly good standard one? and what problems should I look out for? There are quite a few round where I live for around 500 is this good/bad?
Look for rusted bed and around and especially under the plastic window in the back of the cab. 500 is about right for a resonable one. Make sure you get a later model as they came with the five speed box.
if you want to build a show or nice one the bed is the most important part, they get beeten to poo, my mate just sold a solid one with 60k on the clock for 1100 but it was mint.
