Hello All,

I have a few pretty serious questions that I was hoping y’all would be able to help me with. First off, let me introduce myself. I’m a Second Class Midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. I’m from West Texas, and this June I drove my ’87 T/A up from home to have something to drive around. The car was in really, really nice condition. Straight body without a spec of rust, beautiful paint job, and mechanically almost perfect. I added new wheels and tires, a panhard bar, complete Edelbrock exhaust system with headers and a custom Y-pipe, trans cooler, 160 degree thermostat and cooler fan switch sensors, new shocks and struts, a cold air intake with K&N filter, and various other things. The transmission was rebuilt around 20,000 miles ago, and the top end of the engine was done about 50,000 miles ago. The car currently has a little over 130,000 on it. It gets about 28 or 29 mpg on the highway, and has a 305 TPI with a 700R4.

Now for the bad. I was returning from a trip to the Shenandoah Mountains over labor day weekend and had an accident. I came around a blind curve into a cloud of tire smoke. I shut her down as fast as I could without locking ‘em up, but to make a long story short, I met the rear end of a suburban with a trailer hitch while I was still moving about 15 mph. I’ll attach some photos, but here’s the basic rundown of the damage done.

Ruined:
-Hood and forward hood vents
-Passenger Fender
-Nose Cone
-front Ground effects
-Hood latch
-Hood latch panel (not sure the proper name for this piece, connects the top of the nose cone with the radiator support)
-cracked windshield
-radiator support
-Fog lights, turn signal lights, headlight motor assemblies
-Bumper cone assembly

Damaged:
-driver fender (not bad, just a little out of alignment
-front spoiler
-inner fenders?

I am pretty certain that the frame itself wasn’t bent. The car drove straight before I put on the donut spare to keep the tire from rubbing the bent up fender. The doors still open and shut like new. However, the cracked windshield gives me a bit of concern, because it means that the body was at least momentarily tweaked pretty hard. Everything mechanical appears to be ok, and there aren’t any leaks. I drove her back 200 miles to the academy without a problem. Only thing I noticed is that the right turn signal is either on or off, it doesn’t blink any more, and when you turn on the lights, the right turn signal comes on too.

Here are my major questions:

1)If I decided to have a body shop repair it, about how much could I expect to be charged by a good shop?
2)If I decide to do the repairs myself, how hard will the radiator support be to fix? I’ve only worked on old Mopars and 2nd Gens before, both of which either have a removable front subframe or bolt on radiator support. Is this the case with a 3rd Gen, or am I going to have to cut out the old and weld in a new support?
3)Are there hidden problems lurking here that I’m not thinking of, like inner fenders or something else?

Here are the major options I see to choose from:

1)Repair it myself
2)Have a good body shop repair it
3)Find another clean 3rd Gen and swap over my modifications to it, then keep my T/A around for parts or part it out
4)Part out my T/A and buy something else with my money

Any input is greatly appreciated, as well as fresh ideas. If anyone knows of a good body shop around my area, I’d like to get in contact with them so I can get a rough estimate of the repair ideas. Mainly I’m concerned about the overall cost of any option, as well as how much time it will take (I don’t have much of that at all in my current occupation). I’m also really interested in saving my car, it means a lot to me. Heck, it was the first vehicle I drove after I got my driver’s license.

Thank you so much for your time, I’m really trying to make this right.

-Levi

 

One more shot, as well as a before photo.

 

Wow geez do you have full coverage insurance?? I'd cry if that happened to my car...You would charged a pretty penny by any body shop thats for sure....and are you sure you were going 15 when you hit?

 

Yeah, I had a little alone time off in the woods before the cops got there...

I didn't have full coverage, just liability insurance, so whatever happens as far as repairs go will be coming out of my own pocket.

And, believe it or not, I was almost stopped whenever I hit. There literally wasn't an impact as far as being thrown forward or anything. What happened, is his trailer ball hit about the level of the bird on the nose cone, and I slid underneath the bumper, causing a bunch of bending and crunching damage to the front end. I was also shocked at the amount of damage versus the force of the impact, but I guess that's just crumple zones in action.

-Levi

 

As mentioned, it won't be cheap to have a body shop fix it. It is pretty easy to fix that yourself though.

If you take a look at the pics of my Camaro in my VBGarage I had to do basically the same work to get it roadworthy. I also had to replace the driver's side fenderwell and part of the subframe though. Just doing the radiator support won't be too difficult but you will need a welder or someone who can weld it for you. The front of these cars don't bolt together like the older cars/trucks do. It took me about a year to get it back on the road working on it about 10 hours/week or so. I had a lot more work to do, and that also includes the 2 months I spent learning to weld.

Since your damage is primarily in the middle there shouldn't be much, if any frame damage. You can have a body shop check it out to be sure if you are really concerned about it. If the car drove fine afterwards and didn't pull to one side or wander all over the road you are probably alright. You will probably need to straighten some of the sheet metal out around the battery trays in the front behind the headlights.

How did your radiator survive? Did the hitch slide up over it?

 

Yes, it raked the radiator back at a very odd angle, but somehow it managed to survive. I'd have really been in a mess if that silly thing had broken open.

 

You might want to replace that if you do fix up the car. At the very least, go over it with a magnifying glass and have it pressure tested. The radiator is not something you want to take chances with.

 

my bet on the windshield is that the hood hit it and not from frame twist

 

I felt your pain buddy...



Sorry to see that. And I believe you were only going about 15 or less. Especially because you hit an SUV. I hit a hyundai and I STILL went under it. Once the top of the bumper cover/front of the hood makes contact before the bumper bar, its all over for a good bit of the front end.

I was going to fix her...but after all the work I put into it, I decided I couldnt bear to go through a body rebuild. So I just got another car to replace it. Its not the easiest repair job in the word. The radiator support area takes some patience and some fab skills. The good thing is, you can still find a lot of those parts new and the prices arent too bad.

Good luck with her... Looks like it was a really nice ride before.

J.

 

I've cussed and discussed nearly every option with my brother, my parents, and some of my more car savvy friends up here at the academy, as well as everyone else I got get to lend an ear to me. I've pretty much decided that my best route out of this mess is to find another third gen and swap the parts over, I'm just not going to have the time or the facilities to repair the car myself, and I can't really justify spending $5000-$7000 in repair bills when I could come in way under that by just swapping cars. I'm going down to North Carolina this weekend to look at a black '87 Formula that I've found. It's got a T/A hood and ground effects, with a fresh paint and body work job, a carb 305/auto combination, and only 75,000. WS6, T-tops, power everything, looks like a really nice car. Needs tires, seats, and a few other pieces, which coincidentally, I happen to have laying around now. After I'm done swapping and merging the two cars, I'll probably leave whatever's left up for sale as a whole or parts. So, if anybody's interested, that'll be coming down the line here pretty quick.

Thanks for the help, again, any ideas or replies, fire away.

-Levi

 

That's exactly what happened to mine when the PO wrecked it. It pushed the hood back and the corner of the hood where it comes to a point hit the windshield. My frame was bent in front of the driver's wheel well though, but the main point of impact was just inside of the driver's headlights.