treynon

I have a frame for the bucket headlight crunched on my RH side of my 85 GS. its pretty messed from the bracken from the hood that goes into it to where it connects to the fender. Would it be worth it to pay someone to cut it out and weld it or could Is it possible to just get a whole engine bay from a donor car at a junkyard?

Mike

Hades12

We need pics to tell.

But a full front clip will be costley. 2 - 3 K in work


Mine looked like this



Cost me $200 to have it pulled out and all the panels alligned.

treynon

i need to find my digi cam. but how did it cost you 2-3 grand? if u find a front clip from a donor car wouldnt u be able to take it to a body shop. The engine will be out of it.

Hades12

To do a front clip they have to put it on the frame machine and set it. Strip all the panels. Do the cut, Straighten what is now there, Put the new cut in and weld. Then check and allign again if needed.


Mine was just pulled out. took him 8 - 10 hours and he charged me for one day. It was really 220. It is hard to see in the pic but the Bucket area was pushed back and the Bolt section for the Header Panel was back a bit. He pulled all that and and reset the hood hinges to the correct spot.



This is after the pulling work was done.

treynon

220 bux? man thats nothin to have a perfect front clip instead of a POS clip.

treynon

I also need my firewall taken back a bit for my 2.3 i'm putting in. Probably take out the engine this weekend and start gettin this ish done.

Hades12

I dont think you understand. I had mine Pulled, Not Clipped.

85rotarypower

Read through the thread again. He had his front end PULLED back into position. No new front clip. $220 is still pretty good for getting a frame pulled back into position.

This is why it costs 2-3K for a new front clip. Its a LOT of work to cut a new front clip out while keeping everything straight, then you gotta go through the same process to get the new clip on your car. Even being a 1/16 of an inch off can make your car go down the road a little sideways.

treynon

well then if you could imagine the bracket that holds the bucket in place from the fender to the hood is totally obliterated but the other side is perfectly fine... what would you do? btw thx for all the replies

Mike

Hades12

Swap parts to a new car. I would have swaped mine over but I could not find one.


Are you going for a nice 2.3 swap or something you can run at the track?


$220 was a "Good O boy" price. A normal shop would have run 1K or so for what I had done. I still have to paint it.

Lee Lyons

if you know someone with a backhoe you can pull that our with some chains and someone on the controls who knows what their doing. On saturday I used my john deere 310sg to pull out some bends in the frame and bumper of my dodge ram 2500...worked amazing and cost nothing...

Hades12

Can be done with two trees and a come along also.

treynon

two trees?

treynon

I just baught this car, I'm not even thinking about swapping it bcuz the interrior is mint and everything else is too.. Could I go to a junkyard and hack out the bracken from the hood to the fender? remember these parts are easy to come by in cali... I dont think theres any reason to get a whole diff shell.

Hades12

A Tree to Chain each end of the car two.


You can get the cut you need. All it takes is a Sawsall.



This car was used for that purpose. Kind of hard to tell but you can see that it has been cut on both sides and was used to replace the full front end on another car. It is cheep enough to do if you can do it yourself. But will cost a bit at any body shop.


If the Lower part of your car is straight then you could just cut out the headlight area on the side you need and patch it in. But I cant say for sure with out pics.

treynon

Well I found a donor car with no engine or anything blocking the part I need to cut out... Why again do I need trees? Cant I just take a sawzall and cut out a generous *so the body shop can trim it to size* piece and take it to a welder and pay him by the hour?

Mike

Hades12

The trees are if you wanted to pull the car yourself.

And yes you can cut out a large peice and take it and the car to the body shop. I would go get an estimate first.

treynon

yep, i live in an area of california where alot of hispanic workers compete for work, and alot of them are grade A welders, some of them are not... i'll def do my homework on this one... but from the looks of it, its not going to be very hard now. I just need to rent a reciprocal saw and be vewy caweful.