I can bolt on almost anything that can be bolted on to a car but have never done any body work. My wife rear ended someone with her 1991 Accord. We have gone back and forth between selling the car off for parts and getting it repaired. Could someone give me an idea how hard it is to do body work on the front end of these cars? The hood is trashed but that is easy. One of the fenders is mashed pretty well and the support that holds the radiator in place is bent. I will try to post a photo. Thanks in advance.

 

Another pic of the front end. What do you think. Can this be repaired by an amatuer, hand this to a professional to repair or just sell the car off for parts?

 

The problem with the hit you took, is that the underpinings (radiator support, and inner ferders have gone ^%$&#* on you. In order for your Hood, fenders, Lamps and such to fit properly, the stuff under them must be straight (square).
Just with the radiator support crumpled, it has pulled the fenders inward. The bolt holes on replacement components won't line up, and most likely IF you got it all hung, the hood would hit the pinched fenders and wouldn't close.
The first thing to attack would be replacing the radiator support; know welding?............
Got the tools:
Plasma torch
Mig Welder
Measurement tools. ???

Changing out fenders and hoods and such on a square chassis is one thing; what you've got really should go to a body shop.

It's a shame, it looks like a clean car. You may be able to sell it as is to someone in the bodyshop business.

P

edited for spelling ^&%$


Modified by P_Adams at 5:32 PM 10/10/2005

 

Thanks, that is about the answer I was looking for. I do not have those tools but have been thinking about handing the car over to the local Mechanical Education program at a local high school to see what they can do. There is one in town that has a reputation for being pretty good. Any idea about how much I should end up paying a normal body shop to repair this damage? Just a ball park number would be helpful. I have tried selling this car off for parts in the past but have not persued it too much. I may do so on this site at some point soon.

 

The "straight" body shop approach is going to crowd the price you'd spend to replace it. I would suspect anywhere between 2500 to 4000.
I base my guesstimate on my experiance of having to replace Front and rear bumber covers, supports, headlamp capsule, muffer and intermediate pipe. (I was rear-ended and pushed into another car) and the insurance estimate I saw was for 1790.00; and in reality it was pretty much cosmetic.
You have several options:
Sell it for parts
Sell as is
Allow the High School to repair it as a project car
Donate it to the school (non-profit org) and claim it as a tax write-off
or-bite the bullet and fix it straight-away

It all depends on your finantial situation and how attached your wife is to "her" car

P

 

P,

Thanks for the help. The car isn't costing me anything sitting in my yard. Well, nothing if you don't count the sound of my wifes' voice complaining to me about the broken down car in the yard; pretty taxing now that I think about it. I think I am going to try and sell the car off for parts/repair. If I cannot get my price I may try to see what I can get done at the Tech School.

 

i suspect that the frame rails are stright since that ia high up hit. the entire core support will be repalced, which will require a welding rig, but to remove it you jsut ned some patience, a sawzall MAYBE, but for sure a drill to remove spot welds.

Cost in parts I bet would be less than $500, since you can get aftermarket fenders, aftermrket grille, aftermarket head lights and hood. The head lights i think we sell over the coutner are like $100 including the corners. Also used parts are an option too. You may even get color matches stuff...matter of fact i KNOW that where i work has a hood and fenders that should be good int eh same brownish gold color.

If you can avoid paint your costs will be a lot lower.

 

I did much worse to my 92 and it, like yours, is very much worth fixing. Remove the bumper cover, bumper, radiator, lights and anything else in your way and see whats up. My core support was bent, but was not as bad as it looked before I took it apart, and it did not have to be replaced. I'm not saying yours won't but it always seems worse than it really is before you strip it down. I'd give it a go. You can still get your parts money out of it if you fail. A come along and a couple of trees will straighten anything.

 

that front end is not square even though the hit is high up. take a closer look and you will see that the front fenders pulled in the whole front clip. You are most likely gonna have to replace the subframe and front fender rails in addition to the front cross member

 

Glad someone else caught it as well

P

 

The Radiator support must be replaced, then... you can put new radiator if needed, new headlights and stuff...
No need to "special tools" or anything fancy... ..start removing the fron bumper, headlights and unscrew everything you see conected to the radiator support, which holds the radiator, headlights, hood opener and support for the bumper.
If you think you can do it yourself.... go ahead.... ...that's why I decided to work with that kind of stuff.... ...otherwise.. a body shop will charge you more than 900 dollars easily...

 

I do no agree with any of the "frame" damage assessments at all. A low hit that far in can bend the frame rails, but a high hit does not damage anything like that.

The ends of the fenders are damaged, the radiator support is damaged, the hood is damaged, but odds of the lower crossmember being damaged are very slim, and the sheet meta behind the fenders can VERY easily be replaced or reshaped to work again.

as a matter of fact we jsut rebuilt a 5th gen with a hit that went in further than that on the right corner, we replaced the fender, radiator support, front bumper, headlight, and straightened some stuff. I drove it yesterday to the detail shop and it is better than most 10 year old hondas. the only problem with it is the battery acid damage on the engine.

 

In the first picture take a look at the lower fender. do you see the kink in it at the fuse panel? take a look at the upper fender as there is no kink. also take a look at the ripples in the lower fender.

in the second picture you can see where the WHOLE FRONT CROSS MEMBER is bent at a slant- especially on the passenger side of the car.

I have a salvage car and I can tell you that if you don't do it right it will not drive right when it is put back together. It is better to replace bent stuff like that than trying to straighten it as the steel is now structurally weaker than it was before the accident. On my car I replaced the whole front end (rails fenders hood clip etc) and the car drives just fine and straight

 

that "cross member" you reference is called the radiator suport. IT can be replaced with great ease and is regularly replaced on front end hit cars.

If you had problems with a salvaged car then you had it rebuilt by someone who doesnt know what they are doing.

The shop i work at has been around for over 20 years, with the rebuilder/body guy/mechanic having been there for 17. i ahve wathed him repair cars with hits jsut like htat, in fact 3 in the past 3 months, as well as many with FAR harderr hits to the front.

A car that comes into our yard like this one will be for sale in less than a week, will drive straight, align perfectly...as a matter of fact I have been driving a 265k 97 accord 4 dr whtat was hit deeper on the fron than this car and it works fine witout an issue.


If this car was structurally damaged the engine would be pushed back which it is not. The battery would also have burst as well....again it is not.

 

obviusly you didn't read what I said........ On my car I replaced the whole front end (rails fenders hood clip etc) and the car drives just fine and straight

 

Honestly I would fix it if it ran good before and you like the car.

I would get the fenders and hood and lights and grill off ebay or junk yard for cheap.

then like someone else said a tree and a comealong can be your friend.

it looks like it should drive straight. does it?

and I dont believe the lower crossmember is bent. is it?


If it drives straight no harm can be done in at least starting to pull out the damage by your self.

 

I have to agree with some and disagree with others. I work at a major body shop and I've seen things that werent as bad but I've seen things that were far worse. I think that you should pull all parts off on the front and then figure out what you should do. From the pictures it looks as if the radiator support is bent it all depends on who bad before you go buing the parts. It also looks like the left framerail is bent putting the knik in the fender at the top. Someone here said the engine would be pushed back if the frame was bent but that is deffinately not true, it would have to be to the extreme before the engine gets pushed in any direction.

 

What this gentleman is refering to is whats called "hidden damage". Both the Insurance Industry and your local bodyshop will tell you that 95% of all estimates are written with the knowledge that at some point a "supplimentary estimate" is written afterwards because damage was noted after the original tear-down and clean up.
You won't know how involved this repair is until you do the tear-down and clean up.
I notice that those who are saying "oh it's easy" work in shops, or have a working knowledge of body repairs (and most likely have the tools to accomplish all this), and I applaud the effort to encourage him to repair it himself. But I think this enthusiasm should be tempered with a warning about the pratfalls of not doing it right.

P