So I hit a deer coming home from work friday. It bent my rad support and rather than pulling it im considering just replacing it. Exactly how hard is this to do and how long will it take? I won't be welding it myself, a dude i work with used to run a body shop and knows a ton of ****, I just want to figure all this out before I ask him to do it for me.

Dunno if this helps but heres a pic:

 

If you remove it and its your first time it will take a bit youll have to pull the front bumper off headlights etc. and remove the radiator and a/c condensor etc. basically everything that touches or bolts to the support.

And once everything is removed there are alot of small spots that are tackwelded to hold it all on and you can buy a spot weld drill bit, and you dont want to drill through the support and the frame rail etc. you want to drill through the support and weld only so the new one can be welded back on alot easier.

But once everything is drilled through they make thin flat punches just for breaking the welds free etc. and once its all the way off just gring any of the left over weld or support off so everything is clean and flat and then make sure the new support all lines up and start welgin and spray it and put it all back together.

 

got any pics of the deer?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SpeedDreamz.com &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">got any pics of the deer?</TD></TR></TABLE>

pics ftw.

 

sorry no pics of the deer, it oddly happened in the middle of the day, after work, in kinda heavy traffic, I guess the deer had it out for the da cause it was perfect timing.

 

I just did my DA, took me 25 minutes to get the old one off and about 30 to get the new one on, lined up and welded. Can't even tell it was replaced.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PandaHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I just did my DA, took me 25 minutes to get the old one off and about 30 to get the new one on, lined up and welded. Can't even tell it was replaced.</TD></TR></TABLE>

awesome. i think my front end is going to end up looking better than it did before i hit the deer, since I think the rad support was bent before and just pulled instead of replaced.

 

Here's a pic of it all welded up. If I remember correctly, theres about 40-50 spot welds.

 

On and off takes me about 4 hours.

It looks like you only need to do the top support.

Make sure you get the body measurments and a tram to measure with.

If you dont have acsess to body measurments take your own by x;ing out the bay and straight measurments from same spot to same.
Your friend if he is good will know what I am talking about.

If you do it without measurments I recomend tacking it on and assembling the car to make sure it fits right before final weld.

PS reaming hole on fenders and buympers means it isnt lined up right, HAHA

Good luck

 

where the blood? where is the deer. if i ever hit a deer i would be having a bbq