How much do you guys think this will cost to fix and do other year parts fit on it? I want only 88 parts.

Your sheetmetal, ex. fenders and hood wont be bad on price especially if you get some unkyard parts. Your problem in cost and labor is going to be the radiator support and any other internal structural components that may be damaged. The radiator support is going to take a good bit of time and experience in body work and welding to put it back correctly. If you are not filing it on insurance, best thing to do is start tearing that puppy down so you can see exactly what is damaged and needs to be replaced. After you do that hit up the junkyards and go from there with your local bodyshop. Hope this helps.

. Have fun with broken or messed up bolts on the left fender. It looks like you rearended a pick up, check your door gaps on the top and the bottom of both doors. Its a good indacation if your unibody frame is bent. If it is, you just may want to buy another one as for frame pulling is extremely exspencive.
Good luck.

dang this sucks. Im having the job done for free by a family mechanic. I just can't give her up though...

pull off the front end, and inspect, you could get lucky, how fast did you hit?, you have no air bags so you dont have to worry about that. your best idea is to buy a $500 camaro that has the whole front end on it, that way you will have everything you need right there and can see where it goes. Once done with parts camaro, part out the rest if you want. Its not AS hard as you think but its no walk in the park, if yall are just working on it on the weekend...its gonna take a while( a few months) Now is the time to upgrade...twin fans, aluminum radiator, HID head lights sonce yours are smashed to next week. cowl hood...ect ect
If your gonna do it...Do it right.

I already found some Third-Gens to get some parts off. I like your idea of buying a $500 Camaro lol. I was driving to school one morning and I kept looking at my rear-view mirror. There was an accord in front of me stopped and I was driving about 30-35 mph. It was rear-end collision and everyone had some kind of injury but me. I guess you could say my Third-Gen saved me with the seatbelts. Anyways, I only want to buy 88' parts but depends if I even find one. I only have enough money for a basic repair. I'm only spending about $300 since my mechanic is in the family and I dont have to pay for labor.

limiting yourself to 88 parts only might make it abit harder, I believe 87-89 was all the same. $300 on parts...well here in north texas my local salvage yard charges $100 for hoods, $50 a fender, your gonna need a radiator support, radiator ect ect paint to, i fully painted my car in shop class at school this past year....it was $500 for materials...I dont know if your $300 budget is gonna happen...Buying a parts car is the best idea I can give you. Like I said, youll have everything. Good luck. Keep us updated

Have you ever been in an accident before? I'm kind of scared that my car wont look the same anymore you know. Can you tell me more about the radiator? I plan on helping out with the work. You do think this is repairable right?

Almost anything is repairable, depending on your skills and your mechanics skills. The radiator support is spotwelded in and if that is your only major structural damage then it will be the most challenging part to fix. However if there is frame damage then it will need to be put on a frame machine to fix it if it can be fixed. So tear it down so you can see what's going on and keep posting maybe we can help you out. As far as staying with 88 year make you are good to go all the way to 90 without any issues as far as ground effects bolting up correctly on the fenders. So if you find a different year car or parts and they are cheap get them so you can save some dough and get your car back together faster.

Been in an accident...yes, had a third gen in it...no.

My best friend pile drived his mustang into some car at 35, the car wasnt moving. His wreck didnt damage the fender nearly as much as yours...but he did a good amount of damage to.




Ok now you remove the front end, This means, fenders, hood, bumper, radiator support, radiator, now itll look like this (except itll be a camaro)


Now, this is were I can understand you going, o boy, now what do I do. well once you get the radiator support out of the way, you just weld in a new one.
(can someone chime in and say what this part of the car is, I dont recall it.)
Make sure these are straight...take it to a frame shop for measurements, if its off...the car will never go straight down the road again.

once the radiator support is finished itll look like this again



TAKE YOU TIME PUTTING THIS BACK TOGETHER. Like I said, if this is off...it will never go straight again, no body panals will line up, then you will have basically done it all for notheng.

putting fenders, bumpers and hoods back on is easy...just takes awhile (lots of bolts)

once its all back together. time for paint. once its done you will have a good looking camaro again. here is his mustang after we finished it.

This took him 7 months working on it 2 hours a day 5 days a week.

Thanks a lot guys I'll definitely keep you all posted!

i had an accident similar to this where i failed to yield to a van.

cardomain.com/id/last_

my scenario was a bit different, it was more of a sideways impact on the front. because of this i had to get a frame alignment to make sure everything was square. that was an even five hundred. after that i got the whole nose of the car (reinforcement bar, header panel, headlights.. the enitre front bumper assembly) for 125 bucks.. which was a steal. then i got two different fenders for one it was 25 bucks but the other cost me like 45 if memory serves. what has really killed me is labor.

hope this helps a wee bit.

updates?

my old 82 was hit int he rea and bent the frame... I took it down to the basics and towed it up to the local body shop. Pulled the frame back into spec and it cost me 250. Welded it all back together and reassembled it. Drove it home and noticed that it pulled slightly to the right. Turns out that once the frame is bent you almost never get it back exactly where it was when she rolled off the line. It was liveable though. Had the same car hit in the front 2 yrs later... stripped it down and rebuilt it again except this time upgraded the hood, lights, and everything else I could think of. Couple yers later I rebuilt the motor and was driving it two weeks later when she went up in flames due to a broken 10 cent rubber fuel hose... Just trying to say. It can be redone and redone but fire... not so much... good luck

Yours looks like both front frame stubs need to be replaced and probably further back on the driver's side. That means the area around the steering box is junk and of course the radiator support and all the little pieces around it.

If it were me I would buy another one that maybe has a bad transmission or whatever and use the parts from yours to fix it up. Sorry, I think your car is dead and nice bodies with dumb things wrong are abundant.

I'm keeping a nice '85 Z/28 around as a spare just in case.

Here are some more pictures guys

These are all the pics I have of her. Give it to me straight guys does she have a chance to run again. Is it worth fixing or should I buy myself another 88 IROC

this may sound like a silly question but did you talk to your insurance company?

I only had liability. Accident was my fault and they're not doing anything..

Oh that sucks

Any car has a chance of running again with money, time and the right people. When I bent the frame of my 4th gen (Bridges DO in fact freeze before roads), it cost 4500 to straighten her out and get her back on the road. What you need to do is take a picture (or look at) your car at eye level with the headlights...look at your car, does the whole front end look like its curved or bent a certain way? if yes, there's probably frame damage. if its just the nose cone, etc, then you probably dont. But it definitely looks fixable, but it may be costly. Get a quote from the body guys, and sleep on it. then make your decision whether or not to repair or buy another.

PS..after i got my 4th gen frame straightened, I had no problems in terms of pulling or anything.

Even this?!


heeheehee

sorry I just had to

That'll buff out, no worries! Might need a little bondo. but that's it.

Ok so my mechanic backfired and I need to transfer my Camaro back to Glendale CA from La Puente CA. Anyone got AAA...? loll... God I hate seeing her so messed up makes me hurt inside.

I know what you mean. I felt the same way when I wrecked my 4th gen, and now my third gen is falling apart.

My engine was stalling something terrible, so I had Just got the fuel pump, sending unit, two fuel lines, vaccuum hoses, wheel cylinders, rear brake lines and hoses fixed, and 774 dollars later (AND THAT WAS JUST FOR LABOR! Add another 300 dollars for parts!) I get my car back. Then I bring her home and all goes well for 2 weeks when....boom, transmission loses second gear. So tomorrow I have to go pick up a cheap junkyard 700R4 tomorrow for 200 bucks and get that put in. And THAT has to hold me long enough to get a job to afford a rebuilt trans.

...All on a currently unemployed college student budget...

THIS CAR BETTER BE ******** WORTH IT!!

So I definitely feel ya man....did they say if you had frame damage or not?

Does anybody know where to find the body identification tag? It should have four digits, the last four of which should match the last four digits of the VIN. The guy who sold me my 89 IROC on ebay made false statements, i.e., the "paint is original", although the "new" color, not white like the RPOs, is a hard to detect paint job. The radiator blew up, etc., and there's at least one undisclosed accident. The eng and trans numbers match, but the body identification tag the 1989 shop manual refers to would help narrow down the proof I'm gathering. It's supposed to be a tag attached to the center of the radiator tie? There's a plate with numbers 03 - 3703, on the top center of the rail in front of the radiator, but they dont match the VIN. What are those numbers? (those last numbers don't match the VIN on a friend's 90 IROC, either; so what are they about?) Thanks guys!

It must be a Chevy; it's "Like a Rock"; if it's new? - GM will take it back in 60 days! (just kidding!)

Why bother with that? Just go around and match all the VIN tags. Every major body part on '89s have a VIN on it. Bumpers, fenders, hood, glass, doors, hatch ect.

Also, most of those cars were repainted under warranty because of the terrible paint adhesion and oxidation damage that occurred within a year or two of being new.

As far as a lawsuit on the originality of a twenty year old car..... good luck

Thanks, that's a great point about the repainting, which could explain a lot. What do you think of a guy saying the car, yes, twenty years old, was "always garaged, never driven in the snow", and, (the car has 54,000 original miles), and, as his bill of sales show, he only owned it for ONE month before I bought it?! It also came with at least one undisclosed accident, and a host of minor and major mechanical and other problems, as opposed to the great "interior and exterior condition"? Maybe I'm missing something; is their a third component which is neither interior nor exterior? (just talked to Bank of America fraud department; paid with cashier's check; they'll help if car was sold through ebay). Anyway, I'm curious about the plate and numbers on the rail, center front of of radiator - anybody know what that's about? Thanks for reply, RG.

RG, (anyone?) Got car, ('89 Irc-z, 5.7L, auto; 2:73 BWA,T-Tops): came repainted but not orig color; RPOs say white exterior w/silver/yellow accent stripes/gray wheels; have the grey wheels; car ,though, is metallic grey/pewter; see orig. white paint beneath A pillar molding; eng cmpt: would GM have accessible record of warranty repaint, (dealer owned til Feb 4, '91;2,335.8 mi.)? Eng. cmpt rustproofed, not likely original, but hides source of "body flex" noise, RH si; frame damage near lower RH of bottom of radiator, etc.: there are no VINs on ANY of the glass - I've seen pictures of other cars that have VINs on the glass - are they removable? Thanks for any help, Gents?

Looks like I will store my Camaro and fix it later on...I might buy a 06 Monte Carlo SS. I love those bodies.