Rehab a late model repairable

[Rch]

My neighbor is a body man and I grew up around cars, tractors and machinery. He put me on to fixing late model wrecks which I've given to the kids. We've done three, an '03 Pontiac Vibe, an '05 Civic and an '05 Corolla. I pick cars that are crumpled away from the running gear, in the rear. The Pontiac (really it's a reskinned Toyota Matrix) had 16K miles, the Civic only 800 miles and this Corolla 5 K. I've got these from henrysrepairables.com from central MN. That site links to starautosales.com in Lennox SD. After all is done I had a car at 2/3 the going rate not counting my time ( I paid my neighbor)

Here is what we started with;

 

[Rch]

The first thing is to get a hold of the car so you can do some serious pulling. This involves attaching a jig to the rocker panel creases at all 4 corners and then connect all together with steel pipe.

 

[Rch]

Here are pix of the "tower" which sits on 2 -10' channel irons that are reinforced and slide under the car and chained to the car. The tower has a heavy duty jack and pulley system that delivers 40,000 lb of pull. That plenty for these compact cars. On the tower the pulling chain and other chains can be hooked at different level and even routed to pull at an up or down angle. The whole tower assembly is braced and anchored to the car to get a pull in the direction you want. My neighbor Dave is a genius at setitng this up.

You can see the chains attached at the bumper supports. In one photo we are pulling the left rear of the car back and in the other set-up we are pulling the rear of the car to the right. On the left set up an extra pulling jack is connected to the tower and crease of the rear fender well. You tend to pull on the crumpled stuff so if it tears it's going to be replaced anyway. Once a pull is set up you hammer on the crumpled creases and the metal straightens out, thus the term "bump shop"

 

[Rch]

Tower photos showing set-up

 

[Rch]

Old left fender cut off and new one put on and tack welded

 

[Rch]

Here left rear fender is welded from the inside, Bondo is slathered on the right and sanded down. Prior to the Bondo depression are pull out by welding washers on, then just knocking them off and sanding.

 

[Rch]

Finishing up. A gas door latch was yet to come and the trunk lid had to be adjusted on the hinges.
About a month later the driver's seat got stuck forward on it's rails from a subtle bend, undoubtedly from the accident and had to be finessed.
My daughter is in grad school in Des Moines and this is her car. We love the 35 MPG on the highway.

Another trick in rehabing these cars is using car-part.com to see if high ticket used parts are available close to home.

 

[Ductape]

Great job ! My first two vehicles were wrecks that i rebuilt. In highschool i got a job in a small body shop. My boss used to let me use the shop at night and on weekends. He encouraged me to buy a wreck and fix it myself. My first was a Jeep CJ5 (this was in the early eighties), and when i sold that, he found me a nice 4x4 chevy shortbed that had rolled over. We changed the cab, and all the front sheetmetal. As long as you know what you are looking at (or have the help of someone who does), it can be a great way to save some money on a car. With both of mine, they were sold by the owner after the accident, and had NOT been totalled by the insurance company. This was a plus IMO, since my state issues "salvage" titles on vehicles that have been totalled and rebuilt. I didn't stay in bodywork for more than a few years, but it sure has helped with alot of knowledge for tinkering on most everything else i've owned in my life !

 

[RobS]

Great stuff RCH, takes me back to my high school and college days where I worked in a body shop. Everything looks the same except that washer weld trick. We drilled holes and used a slide hammer or dent pullers. Never seen the washer thing, that's cool. We also did what we called "clips". Take a good front and mate it to a good back. Basically cut the two cars right across the floor and the windshield posts. Did some Corvettes too, but that's a whole different story.

Thanks for the pics, brought back memories!

 

[ToadHill]

When I was in High School I worked part time in a body shop. I watched "Lee" pound and pull out the dented front end of a E type Jag (Aluminum) without stretching it out of shape. The man was an Artist.