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Fixing son's Oops.

NorthernRedneck

NorthernRedneck

Well-known member
A couple months ago, my son rear ended another vehicle in town. The other vehicle was a smaller jeep with a tow hitch on the back that went through his front bumper taking out both headlights, the hood front impact bar and radiator. Surprisingly, it didn't puncture the rad and it still runs and drives despite the electric fan being wedged between the rad and engine.


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He didn't have collision insurance as it is crazy expensive so it's up to us to either repair or sell it for scrap. The rest of the driveline is like new with all new wheel bearings, brakes etc. It's a 2014 and in good shape aside from the damage. I took some time doing research and decided that I could easily repair it as it's all just bolt on parts and pieces.
 
Here's all the parts ordered. The I'm still waiting on the radiator and hood to arrive. The hood will be primed. The front bumper cover, impact bar, and headlights are in.

As far as prices go, the hood, I found online primed delivered for $380.

The headlights locally were like 490 each at the scrap yard but ebay came through for $175 for the pair. The front impact bar and bracket on one side were roughly $250 combined. The front bumper cover was $350 on sale painted. All in, so far he's up to roughly $1500 in parts. The hood will be another $600 to paint. Even the radiator was only $95.

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When I was 17 I slid on ice and smacked into a telephone pole. Found another similar model car that was out of commison I bought the frront end parts I needed and was able to get the car back on the road. A big old ford station wagon. Worked for me. A good experience over all.
Is your son helping with the the work?
 
The 2020 Jeep we had, had a flat black hood from it factory. How would it look flat black? It was also maroon I thought it was kind of sharp that way!
 
Doc said:
When I was 17 I slid on ice and smacked into a telephone pole. Found another similar model car that was out of commison I bought the frront end parts I needed and was able to get the car back on the road. A big old ford station wagon. Worked for me. A good experience over all.
Is your son helping with the the work?
Click to expand...

He's helping somewhat on his days off. I was surprised how quickly it came apart. I had planned on the day in the garage tearing it down but it was down to the rad in 2 hours. We already had everything ordered except for the one bracket I discovered mangled. It's going to be an expensive life lesson for him. He was given the vehicle after my dad passed away in 21 as they had it for their winter beater to save salt getting on their jeep.
 
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I had a couple hours this afternoon so I headed to the garage and got to work transferring over the grill fog lights and license plate bracket over. It's now prepped and ready for installation.

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I removed the top rad supports. I also tested the flexibility of the upper rad support bar that's bent. It will be easily straightened with a crescent wrench.

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I haven't worked on this since the beginning of December as we realized that we had to order a couple more parts.

I removed the old hood and transferred everything over as my son has decided to get it painted at a later date.

I told my son I was gonna use white paint and mark his hood "this hood identifies as red"🤣

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New fan radiator and ac condenser are ready to install.
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I hope you don't learn the hard way like I did.
1- bought daughter a 1969 firebird to restore, she gave it to her boyfriend later thats now ex.
2- Bought son 1980 Corvette 4 speed car with bad engine, built and installed new engine, got rolled and totaled within a year
3- Sold same son my 1969 restored Dodge Dart gt, got the door smashed in but still has it
4- Bought second son that is now a sheriff, a 1968 mustang, did new interior, paint was good. Lasted about a year before he dropped a tire off the road and over corrected resulting in a severe rollover accident that completely destroyed the car, and admitted to me he was texting his GF at the time.
All of them after buying and maintaining there own cars, take care of them very well.
When I turned 16 my Dad bought a 1970 Dodge Charger that didn't run, and told me that I could drive it as soon as I got it running and I received no help at all. Who was smarter??
 
m1west said:
I hope you don't learn the hard way like I did.
1- bought daughter a 1969 firebird to restore, she gave it to her boyfriend later thats now ex.
2- Bought son 1980 Corvette 4 speed car with bad engine, built and installed new engine, got rolled and totaled within a year
3- Sold same son my 1969 restored Dodge Dart gt, got the door smashed in but still has it
4- Bought second son that is now a sheriff, a 1968 mustang, did new interior, paint was good. Lasted about a year before he dropped a tire off the road and over corrected resulting in a severe rollover accident that completely destroyed the car, and admitted to me he was texting his GF at the time.
All of them after buying and maintaining there own cars, take care of them very well.
When I turned 16 my Dad bought a 1970 Dodge Charger that didn't run, and told me that I could drive it as soon as I got it running and I received no help at all. Who was smarter??
Click to expand...
A 68 Mustang from California.........I'm crying on my keyboard..........
 
m1west said:
I hope you don't learn the hard way like I did.
1- bought daughter a 1969 firebird to restore, she gave it to her boyfriend later thats now ex.
2- Bought son 1980 Corvette 4 speed car with bad engine, built and installed new engine, got rolled and totaled within a year
3- Sold same son my 1969 restored Dodge Dart gt, got the door smashed in but still has it
4- Bought second son that is now a sheriff, a 1968 mustang, did new interior, paint was good. Lasted about a year before he dropped a tire off the road and over corrected resulting in a severe rollover accident that completely destroyed the car, and admitted to me he was texting his GF at the time.
All of them after buying and maintaining there own cars, take care of them very well.
When I turned 16 my Dad bought a 1970 Dodge Charger that didn't run, and told me that I could drive it as soon as I got it running and I received no help at all. Who was smarter??
Click to expand...
When I turned 15 my dad said if I wanted a car grandma had two 1939 Fords that hadn't run in years. One was intact but the tranny was bad. The other was on a trailer dismantled into its parts.

On my 16th birthday, I took, and passed, my driver's test with it. The testing agent was impressed with the car. Not so much with my driving.
This was 1963 and I was one of a very few kids who drove a car to school. Much less one they actually owned.
Pride.

I came home one day and the Ford was gone. Dad had to sell it to make the house payment. I learned two big lessons in life that day.

One) You really appreciate that for which you worked hard.
Two) Sometimes, one has to make sacrifices for the better good of others.
 
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I totally understand guys. That's why I laid it out straight and we did our homework sourcing the cheapest parts we could and I only ordered one part at a time. He paid them all off on his part time job and he's putting in the work helping to take things apart etc. I told him roughly what it would cost and that he's paying for everything. Well, we paid for his ac condenser as part of his Christmas present. But he paid for everything.
 
I was feeling better today so I spent the day in the garage working on the rogue. The majority of the time I was working on straightening the rad support bracket. It's actually fairly flexible.

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It turned out alright. Everything lines up.
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I installed the new rad and fan.
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In the process of trying to get things lined up, I accidentally bent one of the lines coming from the transmission oil cooler. So the old two steps forward one step back. I had to stop work on the rad install as I may have to drain it again to change the cooler when it arrives.
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Still waiting on the transmission oil cooler to arrive but I was down at the garage and decided to throw all the old parts together for a picture before I haul them to the dump next week.
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We were back at it today as the oil cooler arrived. I installed the ac condenser and upper rad mount. My son was off work today and put in some wrench time reassembling most of it with me guiding. Of course it took four times as long as we ended up having to disassemble and reassemble things in a certain order.

Here's my son installing the new crash bumper.
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Case in point. I had the headlights installed and had to remove them to install the ac condenser.
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So, here's where I'm at. The front bumper is mostly installed. But, one step forward two back. I figured I would just remove the headlights and reinstall at the end. I just discovered that they have to go in before the bumper cover. Not a big deal. I already removed and reinstalled the bumper twice tonight. What's one more time 🤪
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I lied in the last post. Lol. We went to check the tranny fluid but the dipstick was missing. Only the cap was there. So I ordered one. He didn't drive it until we made 100% sure all fluids were good. It arrived today. I just topped off all the fluids and checked the tires. Went for a test drive and it's 100%. Running perfectly.
 
So after my 2 successful test drives, my son went to take it and it started hissing and squealing under the hood when he accelerated. And it barely moved in drive. Strange. Ok. So we head down the road to the small 2 stall mechanics shop and talk to the mechanic (who just happens to be my new neighbor) He said drop it off and he'd take a look at it today. He did. Turns out a couple of clamps came loose on the tranny cooler lines. They didn't come off thankfully. Couple of new clamps. Topped off the fluids and all good. Running perfectly.
 
Time for an update. The nissan has been running fine since the accident. He's since replaced the front struts but that's normal wear and tear. He's been working at our local one stop beer/mail/grocery store and the owner, who's a great guy btw and is "that guy" who knows everyone in the area, got tired of seeing his vehicle with a black hood. So he contacted a guy who used to be a professional body guy until retirement but still does side jobs.

My son took it to him and picked it up 2 days later. Looks great 👍 The only thing I did in this was loan him the grand am to get to work for 2 days.

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