Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:10:24 -0700
Reply-To: developtrust <developtrust@COX.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: developtrust <developtrust@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: minor accident PICS
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Before you go and buy a new rear bumper and since you have to take it off
anyway see what you can do with a sledge hammer and a few 2 by 4's. You will
be surprised at how well you can straighten a bumper with a few good whacks
with a heavy hammer or sledge. Help from a friend will be good to help
stabilize the bumper while you whack away and wear gloves for Pete's sake.
Then there is replacing it with a custom made 4 by 6 piece of lumber or
large metal tubing.
Think of it as an opportunity to upgrade to custom choices.
With a little patience that front end metal can be fixed with the right
tools or using wooden levers to stretch that metal back out. Then if you are
not happy after a paint job to the front cover it with a bra. No one but you
will know th difference. Fix that rust spot before it gets worse. Pry the
rubber up with plastic spatulas then grind or sand away the rust. Use some
naval jelly on both sides and even a little bondo then repaint. If you do
not fix that rust now it will eat away and be a much more difficult repair
needing welding later. A tedious job but worth doing. It can be done without
removing the windshield but if you have the patience remove the windshield
for easy access to the underside rust.
You were very lucky to have such minimal damage. I see it as a do it
yourself job.
William
> Rob,
>
> BTDT. You're going to need a rear bumper and brackets. The brackets
> will definitely have deformed with that impact. I'm not a body man at
> all, but I think you're going to be able to get away with the front end
> being pulled out without much disassembly, since it looks like things
> are pretty straight from the grill south. See if you can't get the body
> shop to fix that rust spot by the window molding while they're working
> on it.
>
> Karl
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
> Of Rob Campbell
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 8:07 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: minor accident PICS
>
> Here are some pics of the damage to go with previous post:
>
> http://www.dokodemo.org/smooshed/
>
> Its not horrible, but it is, as I hope you can see, certainly bad enough
> that I want to repair it.
>
> Someone already replied that I wasn't clear about the nature of the
> wreck:
>
> I was sitting in a long line of traffic, and a vehicle 6 cars back was
> rear-ended very hard. I was the 2nd to last vehicle in the chain
> reaction. The SUV in front of me was what gave my front that wrinkle,
> but the car in front of her got away painlessly.
>
> Thanks-
>
> Rob Campbell
> 87 Westy, Seattle
>
