yotaboy87

i recently rearended a camero on the interestate and now i have to replace everything on the front end. I had to get a new radiator support and now i can not get the wheel well to match back up to it. there is only about a 2 inch gap and ive banged and pulled as much as i can. my question is has anyone else ever ran into this and what did you do to fix it. i dont want to take it to a shop and spend more money than i already have. one solution i was going to try is using some sheetmetal to cover the gap and weld that into place. let me know what you guys think. thanks.

bob200587

welcome to yotatech. I'm sure there will be some more input, but you should proabably tell what car or truck you're driving. I assume its an 87.....you got any pictures of the problem, that might help.

yotaboy87

hey thanks i forgot to add that but its an 87 pickup..ill try to get pictures up later. how do i post pics?

bob200587

i think you can either add them as attachments or host them elsewhere and provide a link to the site. Btw, how'd you manage to have a wreck on the interstate and have so little damage?

mt_goat

Was the radiator support OEM or aftermarket? Are you sure the frame wasn't bent?

yotaboy87

the wreck really wasnt my fault but i ended up getting a ticket out of it anyway cause the state trooper told me i was following the tractor trailor to close. but there was a wreck in front of him and i was getting out of the way of that and i went to the shoulder and there sat a camero and i couldnt get back over cause of the tractor trailor so i hit the camero...from the looks of it my frame seems to be in good shape still..heres a pic of right after the wreck if it works...
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a...psta7/wreck.jpg

superjoe83

the inner fender well on these trucks are made to crumple it looks like it pushed it down quite a bit, a friend of mine smashed his up close to what you did, we ended up hooking a chain to the inner fender well then attached the chain to a tree and had him give it a few good jerks in reverse, brought it back pretty good
do you have any close up pics?

DudeBud

pic did not work for me.

superjoe83

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a4...sta7/wreck.jpg

how about now

DudeBud

its up now but its hard to see what he is talking about

tulsa_97SR5

That looks like a REALLY nice PU!!! I'm sorry to see it so crunched. You might want to try car-parts.com for a fender & hood as that seems to be the main damage. Again, very, very sharp looking pickup

mt_goat

Before he gets to the fender and hood he needs to get the radiator support and inner apron fitting together. It's like a foundation for a building.

yotaboy87

hey thanks tulsa, i was almost finished with it, i put the lift, tires, paint and fender flares on it this summer. i did all the work myself and that made the wreck hurt even worse. i drove it for maybe two months like that before i wrecked it. i have gotten all the parts and where im having the trouble is getting the radiator support to match back up to what MT. goat said is the inner apron fitting. its only about an inch off and ive tried pulling it every way possible. i even hooked it up to my dads truck and pulled on it. so what i think im going to do is weld a piece of sheet metal to close that gap. yall think that will work? oh another thing it the steering box broke off where the pitman arm bolts up to it and i replaced the box and when i replaced it and i thought i had it lined up straight and when i turned the wheel and turned it back straight the wheels were off to the right. should i take it all off again or unbolt the pitman arm, straighten the wheels and the steering wheel and bolt it back together? this is getting to long for most to read so im going to stop there. let me know what you guys think.

thanks for the help so far i came over here from pirate and i havent been flamed yet..haha

Caffeine

Your truck looks like the one in Back To The Future... maybe go back in time and avoid the accident all together?





Yes, I'm of no help what-so-ever. Most of my autobody repairs involve a hammer and a crow bar.

mt_goat

[QUOTE=yotaboy87] so what i think im going to do is weld a piece of sheet metal to close that gap. yall think that will work? QUOTE]

I wouldn't do that if you care at all what it looks like when you're done. If the radiator support and inner apron don't fit together right, the fender, grill and hood won't either. Are you going to weld a piece of sheet metal to close that gap too? I'll ask again, did you use OEM parts or aftermarket parts? I know some body shops won't use aftermarket body parts for this very reason, sometimes they don't fit together right. I think (never actually done this myself) the inner apron and radiator support need to be all lined up before any welding is done at either end. You may also have some slight frame damage that would show up on a frame rack. The steering box is bolted straight to the frame so if the box was damaged I'd be worried about the frame too.

Did you get an insurance claim on this? The inital insurance claims usually don't have all the damage covered, they always lowball them hoping you won't have it repaired and never discover the actual damage done. The body shops will write secondary claims as they find more damage and often the claim nearly doubles.

Here is a very similar project I may take on myself: http://community.webshots.com/photo/...83446993bvhceV

bryanr

That's from hitting a Camero? Holy cow that's a lot more damage than I would have expected. How did the car look??

99_Runner

Nice looking truck. Welcome to Yotatech and I hope you are able to get everything worked out.

yotaboy87

the camero was pretty tore up. his rear window was busted out and his trunk was in his back seat and i had pieces of his car hanging from the hooks in the front of the my truck..i get what your saying mt. goat about closing the gap with a piece of sheetmetal and i really dont want to do it. i have the fender and everything else matched up at the top, its at the bottom that doesnt match up. I am pretty sure i did not use aftermarket parts, my dad had someone he knows at a shop order the parts for me and from what i know they are all just like the original parts. ill look into it when i get home from school to make sure they arent aftermarket and try to get some pics up tonight so you can better understand what i am trying to do. thanks for the help guys and keep it coming.

yotaboy87

ok guys i finally got a camera to show you what i was talking about. they are not the best pics since i took them with a camera phone. this first pic is looking down behind the radiator support and you can see the gap there...


Next here is the piece of sheet metal i have cut to fill in the gap. there is still some small bends to be made but you get the idea...

yotaboy87

heres another one i took of the front of the truck and what it looks like as of right now. i still have to do a little adjusting to the grill and the bumper. the grill is out of a 92 pickup. i like that grill better so i had to do some modification to make it fit and it fit pretty good...



the pic is kinda blurry and you can see in the pic that i need an alignment bad bc the passenger tire sticks out pretty bad.

oh yeah and the steering problem i had was fixed...