My car had a rough winter. In october I rear ended a lexus, december I spun out at 20Km/h and took a tree head on- BFGoodrich Radial T/As are horrible tires(even on dry pavement, and this was sheer ice). I parked it after that and then in march some punk decided to try and make himself a proud new thirdgen owner, smashed open the column and pulled out the gear for the ignition switch, but from sitting so long the battery was dead. I think he found a way to boost it, but the car has a nasty tranny leak so with no fluid nothing would engage. I've got the front end repairs almost done. I pulled a RF fender, bumper/cover, that fiberglass piece , and a hood from the boneyard, got a bodyshop to straighten and prime those pieces (the way my local junkyard sets things up the bottom rear part of the fender always gets bent, and the hood was dented a bit) and all I have left to do on that is line everything up and paint the car. I can't find a good steering column, and I want one without tilt, I had a tilt column and that's why my car was so easy to start without a key.

Woah, this thread makes me want to never drive my car on the road again.

For all those people out there with cars of high sentimental value, please be extra carful.

I bought my car from my best freinds mom after his dad had a heart attack (age 42) and passed away. If someone was to total the car I dont know what I would do.

BE CARFUL

The wheels are 17 inch KMC (my personal favorite on a third gen) im not sure if they still make them or what style they are, she got them put on about two years ago. And the fiberglass hood took a beating but it didnt shatter all the way through just sheared off ther front driver corner

Even though it was a v6 it was still pretty loud with the flowmaster on it.

Oh and to KINGPIN you asked how she got that car, she helped do all the work on it interior, paint, even under the hood. Shes a car girl

Would an insurance company say anything about the mods to your car while performing an appraisal? For instance a bigger cubed motor, no smog, no air, no egr, no cat?

got hit by a coworker 3weeks after i bought it, 1 week after a overnight hit and run. he tried to say he "forgot to put his truck in park and it rolled into it." complete bs. he was screwing around in the dealer's parts truck and slammed into it

got a $1600 estimate and he paid me with a check the next day

nah... as far as my ins co knows my car is still a v6

keeper ha!

Man you came out like a bandit on that one. :-o it just needed a fender and a matching paint job.



damn thats a keeper there. lol id love to have a girl who would be right there next to me wrenching on our cars.

that and a headlight bezel

I'm crying over here! This is a messed up thread! This is why I want to put maching guns on the front of my car. LOL.. Someone pulls out in front of you..they'll quickly know your there. I think its a lil illegal though.

spun my car into a swamp, I'm fixing all the water damage now (plenty of it) and the tow truck broke off a piece of the bumper but no pics.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Man that is horrible. I love that iroc... man i would get in trouble for hurting someone if they hit my car. Its a good thing that the damage wasn't to bad. I would have been Ticked man. Glad to know its getting fixed. -Matt

Well this was quite the depressing thread I totaled an 87 Formula back in 1990. Somewhere I have pictures. Guy ran a stop sign as I was going around a corner at 50 mph. I hit him head on. Myself, my grandmother and my brother all walked from it. It's why I've always had a Firebird, Camaro, Corvette.... Fun cars and hold up pretty good in an accident, contrary to popular belief.

Man i thought mine was bad.
I bought this from a guy, he wrecked it took cash from insurance and bought car back for 150 also. Then i bought it from him for 600. I fell in love, unfortuanetly i sold it for a profit of $2,100 after just adding a fender, 2" cowl and a nose. It actually looked awesome on the driverside as you can see.
You should have seen the NEON he hit. the rear bumper was in the front seats.
If the car is fixable, fix it. i had to sell cause we had a baby and the wife reminds me of it everday for the past 2 years. I bought it for her cause i own one.

man that thing looks like it used to be beautiful, any pics of how it looked when you sold it?

NO but probably the nicest I've ever owned out of over 15. POOP happens. I gotta find one like it for her again. lol

Sad thread

Some of you may have seen my '84 before, but here she is again...


before:




after losing my brakes to a defective RUSSELL brake hose that blew out:





Lost the brakes when trying to stop for a red light at the end of a bridge. My best option was to straddle the yellow line, shoved the right front of the car under the left rear of a 1/2 ton Dodge pickup, and grazed the side of a lady's Suzuki sedan in oncoming traffic with the left side...She'd just gotten her car back from the body shop too!

Moral of the story...Don't ever buy anything made by Russell...ever! LOL

But it did force me to build another one with her heart and soul!

-Paul

compuwiz from what i could see that looked like a really clean car

Still is.

I agree!

kingpin i think can remember seein a thread about your car awhile back that really sucks man r.i.p. to all the good thirdgens that were KIA mine was really close so i geuss im one of the lucky ones

really? thats awesome lol i thought for sure she was a gonner but please tell me there was a thread on your accident or im gonna go back to sleep

did you buy it off of someone on the boards? cuz im positive ive seen those pictures somewhere else maybe just a similar car

edit: hahaha omg dude i thought you were quadgoat thats why im all screwed up i seen the pictures in your quote and looked at the name and seen yours haha sorry about the confusion lol

Lol...now that you have that sorted out...fyi, I actually still have that car....I'll probably scrap it some day, but for now she's under a cover in our cover-it...being a sentimental sap sucks sometimes LOL

man that sucks so shes to far gone for a rebuild? because that car was gorgeous!

Well thanks! I'm sure she could be repaired, but it wouldn't be worth the time and money since our cars are still pretty easy to find cheap. That's why I built the '92. Cheaper to get a new shell and swap everything over!

...Not that I haven't toyed with the idea of rebuilding her....

looks like a good candidate for a drag car

well mine isn't as bad as some of yours but it still pissed me off.
it was like 2 months after it got painted







the pics make it look better

too mad it was basically my fault that i hit a barrier on the freeway....



BTW, will any door 1982-1992 firebird or camaro fit?

WORST THREAD EVER!!! glad to know every ones alright tho i would be ready to kill some one if anything like this happened to mine

Finally, a thread I can post pictures in!


The above picture is the hard work of three separate incidents.

1. The dent on the right is from parking behind one of my friends in her driveway. She got in her car while I was inside, and backed right into my hood. I'd had the car for two whole weeks.

2. The wrinkle in the bumper cover (can't see too well) is from me rearending a truck in 5 o'clock traffic doing 15-20. This is the only accident that's my fault.

3. The destroyed emblem and scratches (along with the dent on the left) are from some chick in a lifted truck deciding that instead of making a right turn instead of a left out of a parking lot, she was just gonna back up and go to the light. Without looking behind her. The bumper cover and hood were already damaged, and she didn't have insurance, so I just let her go.


Did I mention that the truck I rearended had a tow hitch? Oh. Well. It did. Damn thing wasn't even scratched.



Closeup on the damage.


I got hit by an old couple in a parking lot. Ever since this, I have never parked at the very front of any parking lot. My insurance declared me at fault when they found out I was in reverse during the incident. Apparently being in reverse makes you wrong. No matter what.


This is where the thieves pried open my window to get in to STEAL THE CAR.



This is where my car caught fire when I was having subframe connectors installed. The shop fixed all of the wiring, and got me a deal on new carpet. I knew I shoulda pulled it out instead of just lifting it up on 2x4s where the welding was going on.


My melted hood popper.



I got sick of my car smelling like a barbeque pit, so I ripped the carpet out. Found some mold along the body seams, and haven't finished fixing those to put the carpet, console, and everything else back in.

For still being mechanically sound, my car is pretty jacked. >.<

No. A BBQ pit. Like the ashes in the grill. From catching FIRE.

That, and I got sick of seeing the large section of the carpet missing.

totaled. old man ignored stop sign and got into my lane. I was doing about 60 or 70 mph :/. T-top popped off and ended up in the middle of the street all cracked. Car did 180 spin and I ended up with the rear into a light post. The old man step on the gas instead of the brake and went down a block and hit a parked truck haha. Insurance paid me in full, actually more than I had paid for the car

**** your lucky to be alive.. My brothers wreck was just as bad but we didnt get hurt either.

wow theres a huge height difference between the front and back of where the T-top goes... no wonder it exploded outa there, like the top on a squished pringle can. glad ur alright.

i would have killed my boss right then right there

Sorry, but I had too.
Anyway the first one (Firebird) was kinda sorta mine. Friend gave it to me, no keys, no title, and my car needed doors and half an interior that this one had.



Don't really have a good pic of my car, but the driverside door is dented.
It was wrecked before I bought it, the ds fender was replaced and painted (dosen't match), the bottom part of the front fender is gone, and you can see that the bumper came off another car. The hood isn't straight, dosen't close right, and it bent in several spots.

Here are two I owned :


89 - total frame twistage - a tree collied with the car at low speed - 80k miles


89 - very minor damage - a deer came out to smack my car at 70mph - 170k miles

I bought mine like this from a friend. He fell asleep at the wheel and a mailbox jumped out in front of him. Bought it for $600 including everything needed to fix it except for a radiator and the passenger spindle. Still ran great, drove it on the trailer at his house and then off the trailer and into my garage. Took us two trucks and a car trailer to get everything to my house. I can still remember the look on my wife's face when she saw us coming up the street. I told her it needed work, but apparently she didn't realize just how much work it needed. It's still a work in progress, daily driver in the summer and garaged for wrenching on in the winter.

*Paging iansane*...

I'll just have to provide a link. The whole story is on a thread on sx4club.com.
http://www.sx4club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4438

xflgkingpin vbmenu_register("postmenu_3923241", true);
I sold it to a guy that wanted the front suspension for a 3/4 60's truck.
Best part of that was it's a V-6 car and he paid me to take it to his house.

DSCN2600.JPG

That'll buff out, right??

did you fix it or did it get totaled hart? When did it happen?

no it totaled it the doors got pushed into the quarters and the whole unibody was bent. it sucks i had the car for 4 weeks i traded a 66 valiant for it. it was a beautiful car i loved it and i was driving in my neighborhood and this girl pulled right infront of me had no time to stop. she had no plates no insurance no nothing and i only had liability coverage. so yea it really sucks i havent had a car to drive for the last 4 months till 2 weeks ago i found a 89 gta for a few hundred bucks and thats what i drive now. i sure do miss the 86

Has anyone seen the preview for the show "human wrecking balls" on G4? They showed the guys destroying a perfectly fine Firebird . I don't know if I could watch that show without getting pissed.

Well guys...I hate to resurrect a dead post, but I wanted to share my pain. As a police officer I have seen many wrecks, many of which involved drunk drivers. I always looked at these accidents and said I hope this never happens to me. As I was lheaded home from work in my 87 TA with 91k original miles, I stopped at a light. Ironically some friends of mine were working an accident that occured about 45 mins earlier and they had their cruisers pulled into the median with the wrecked vehicles. At the red light I had two cars in front of me, all of a sudden I'm rearended by something, and it was lights out for me. One of the cops came up and found me wedged between the steering wheel and my seat. There first impressions was seeing me in uniform and they thought I was dead. I soon came around, I feel strongly that the seat belt and my ballistic vest took much of the shock of the wreck. A state trooper came to investigate and found the driver that struck me at fault and arrested him for DUI.

As for my car...without a doubt its never coming back. The impact from the rear definately bent the frame and crushed the bumper badly, broke my exhaust mounts and sheered several header bolts I believe. After the first impact my car was forced into the car in front of me and both car were pushed 20 ft ahead. The hood, front end, and engine mounts are shot...surprisingly the radiator did not crack open but the car is totaled I'm sure. The doors are out of allignment so i'm sure the frame is bent bad.

I have a lot of history with that car. I'm the second owner, my dad being the first having bought the car a week after I was born in 1986. He waffled around and toyed with the idea of selling it long before I could drive but decided he would keep it for me as a gift some day to give to me. On my 18th birthday I recieved the car and for the last 7 yrs that I have driven it, I have babied the car. Over the years I have had many offers to purchase the car as its not totally original but very clean with a flawless interior and very minor hazing in the paint from age.

Sadly today my memories with this car came to a screeching hault. One mans poor decisions cost me my most prized possession, fortunetly I was blessed to walk away from an accident that could have cost me my livelihood or much worse, so for that I'm thankful. To all you guys that have been many long hard hours into your car and lost them over silly things, I am truely sorry as I now join all of you. My only hope is that my injuries are not long term and that the scumbag that hit me who endangered himself and everyone else on the road becuase he was too idiotic to pass the keys to someone else, pays for the crime he has commited.

Below I will post some pics for you guys to see, I'm sorry if this seem long winded but I had to share my misery with some folks who might understand.

Thanks for listening,
Harvs

man that really sucks, are you okay? and post some pics of the car when you get chance... sure was a beautiful car though.

btw a little irony, I too own an 87 Trans Am, Im the second owner, and I want to be a police officer.

Take care of that car man...theres one less out there now...I will post pics. No life threatening injuries, just some bad neck whiplash, hard to look around, but I plan on having it checked out. Good luck on the LE route, its a fun career, very challenging and dynamic, have fun!

thanks man, and I will take care of her for sure, just as you did, really sad that one mans' stupid move can take that right away, but like you said atleast you have your life and thats whats really important.