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Fri Sep 25, 2009 4:04 pm

Uggggh....

Lovely day, today. Bright, sunny, breezy outside. I decided to take a drive. Drove through a green stoplight, as most people normally do. Green still means go, as far as I know. Red still means stop, too, I'm pretty sure...

Anyway, someone decided to go through their red light and smash up my perfectly good front right fender, with a Toyota Corolla. Why? It was such a nice day... really....

Gahg

Unfortunately driver didn't speak much English. It sounded like an Eastern European language to me. Czech, maybe. I'm not sure. But whatever the case, I'm stuck waiting for my insurance company to get a copy of the police report so that they can contact the other driver's insurance company, who will come out and assess the damage to my car and hopefully give me enough money for a new fender and bumper, plus paint. In the meantime, though, I need to pull out the fender a bit so I can drive without it rubbing against the tire.

Just thought I'd share that with you guys...

The last picture is of the rubber strip that goes over the bumper. It got ripped right off. Oh well...

Fri Sep 25, 2009 4:09 pm

man that sux monkey butt!! glad your ok tho. thankfully it doesn't look to bad so a lil wrenching action should have 'er up in no time!

Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:34 pm

fenders are easy but did it mess up your front suspension?

Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:50 pm

OH man, sorry to hear...

I am still dealing with insurance companys when mine was hit sitting in the parking lot.

Hope it goes smooth for you.

Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:03 am

I don't know if the suspension is affected yet. I haven't driven it since yesterday. I just had a couple of blocks to drive from where the accident happened. The fender was rubbing against the tire, and I have to pull that out a bit, today. I just haven't had the motivation to work on it yet. I mean, when you're trying to restore a classic car and someone just runs right into it... it's a big de-motivator. :(

No word from insurance yet. But it's Saturday and it's only noon (central time), so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. If I don't get any new information by Monday, though, that's when I'll start really worrying.

And as soon as I submit this post I should probably start searching the classifieds for a replacement fender. Too bad the '73 Super is a one year only fender design.

Oh yeah, I forgot to take pictures of the bumper, yesterday, so I took pictures of that this morning. It got bent out of shape, too. :?

Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:06 pm

This happened to me a few months ago, only they got my left fender. It sucks to see it as it is but it will be back to its former glory before you know it.

Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:05 pm

71-73 super front fenders are the same. The 73 rear fender is a 1 yeear item in the US, since the tail lights got bigger, but the bumper stayed the same. 74-79 have the big hole for the late style bumper.

Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:16 am

73sports wrote: 71-73 super front fenders are the same. The 73 rear fender is a 1 yeear item in the US, since the tail lights got bigger, but the bumper stayed the same. 74-79 have the big hole for the late style bumper.
Right, I knew they went to bumper shocks in '74, but for some reason I thought that '72 was different in some way. I guess it was just the rear fender I was thinking of that's a one year fender.

That helps. :)

Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:40 pm

ThomasRMyers wrote: so I took pictures of that this morning. It got bent out of shape, too. :?

Hmm.. I see yours still had the reinforcement metal strap behind the bumper.
Don't see these often since most of those have gone missing over the years by PO's. That is what probably kept the bumper from doing further damage to the front end!
Is your bug damaged anywhere else?

Tue Sep 29, 2009 1:59 pm

a.wilson wrote: ThomasRMyers wrote: so I took pictures of that this morning. It got bent out of shape, too. :?

Hmm.. I see yours still had the reinforcement metal strap behind the bumper.
Don't see these often since most of those have gone missing over the years by PO's. That is what probably kept the bumper from doing further damage to the front end!
Is your bug damaged anywhere else?
Yeah, that big steel bar really helps! I'm hoping I can just replace the bumper blade and keep the bar if it's not too bent out of shape. In fact, I'm planning on taking this as an opportunity to switch out my bumper to the kind that has the turn signals built into it, and then I'll be able to get rid of the ones on top of the fenders. I always thought the late model turn signals were a little too big, anyway.

Nope, that's pretty much the extent of the damage.

Today I got a call from my insurance claim adjuster. She basically just asked me a bunch of questions about the car and where the damage was and how exactly the accident happened, and she said she was going to call the other driver after she got off the phone with me, and she would let me know what their decision was when they've "completed the investigation". I hope to God that they find the other driver at fault, because I really need the money to fix the car, and I don't want to see my insurance rate go up. Also... I'm hoping they don't try to total the car. Yeesh.

Anyway, I just paid for a replacement original fender, so I'm hoping I'll get that and the bumper and bumper bracket by next week. I'll post pictures when I've got it fixed up.

Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:21 pm

UPDATE:

So three weeks after the accident, the other driver's insurance company finally decided it wasn't my fault and made an estimate and issued me a check. I got a little over 500 dollars out of it, so after the expense of the replacement parts I bought, I actually made about 350 dollars. I guess I can't complain too much there.

Here are a couple shots of the front end, with the new bumper and fender installed. I went with one of those bumpers that has the turn signals built in. I'd been wanting to get one for a while, since I'm not a huge fan of the late style fender turn signals, and I just took the accident as an opportunity to make that change.

Of course now I need to cover over those holes in the fenders. I'm thinking I'll weld in a piece of metal, cut to size.

Somehow I managed to make my old brackets work with the new bumper, even though the holes didn't line up at all! I even got to keep that nice steel bar that goes between the brackets.

I've also decided that now's a good time to start sanding down the car. I've already got four colors going on, so sanding it down to a fifth color isn't such a big jump. I would have to sand down the stripes, anyway, in order to repaint it, as there's a bump up at the edge. My plan is to go with red for the main color and white on the door panels and quarter panels. I might try to sand down most of the body (what's still original, at least) to find the original paint, until I'm ready to actually repaint it.

I replaced the decklid as well... if I'm going to have a white fender on a blue and green car, I might as well make it look like I'm in the process of replacing parts or restoring the car, so an orange decklid fits the bill. Or something like that. :roll:

So here's hoping that at some point down the road, my car will look as good as this:

Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:59 am

The new bumper looks cool. 8)

Tue Nov 10, 2009 10:12 am

wow your lucky no other major prob's developed. car willbe looking good in no time keep at it.

Have him deported,..... but do it in pieces so its not so ovious.

Tue Nov 10, 2009 11:08 pm

is that a giant rust hole by your back window?

Tue Nov 10, 2009 11:46 pm

Quote: is that a giant rust hole by your back window?

So weird... I have a rust spot that was patched up right there also... '73 also.

Wed Nov 11, 2009 2:02 pm

Ronny Bailey wrote: The new bumper looks cool. 8)
Thanks! I like it a lot, too. I'm just happy I got those turn signals working. They were a little touchy...

Madtat wrote: wow your lucky no other major prob's developed. car willbe looking good in no time keep at it.
Thanks. I haven't got much money to spend on new parts right now, but at least I can keep sanding for next to nothing. I'll post more pictures when I've gotten more done.

69bugboy76 wrote: is that a giant rust hole by your back window?
Well, it's not really a hole. The paint was all bubbled up, there, so I sanded it down to the metal and sprayed rust converter on the area. But there are a bunch of tiny holes around the area that I couldn't do much about.