Anyone good at fixing this??? Sad end...

[cknowles3]

Well... I have no words that appropriately express the pain in my soul!!!   

I will probably need the knowledge you all have as I would like to fix this somehow.  Never done this kind of work before and I don't even know that it's something I can do.  This is beyond painting trim pieces and reconditioning plastic... 

This happened tonight on my way home from work.  The policeman who saw it happen said it was actually pretty amazing that I didn't get creamed as I slid all kinds of sideways through 2 lanes of busy traffic at the end.  So I'll count my lucky stars that I'm still around to be able to try to fix it!  I'll post more pictures when I get it to somewhere I can start to really look at it.  Right now I just need a tissue...   

[cknowles3]

A couple more pics I snapped while waiting there with the police officer. 

[cknowles3]

And a coupe from the front...

[swan song]

That'll buff out.

[sirdan]

Shouldn't be any frame damage, looks 100% fixable to me.  Looks like the hatch survived at least!

[swan song]

That is good. There is a really good body repair discussion going on in this thread. http://www.celica-gts.com/forums/index.php?topic=29989.0

This guy appears to know his stuff and does really detailed work.

[ozzie]

That rear quarter panel looks pretty fucked to me. It might be possible to repair, but I'd start looking for another chassis, even a good repair will probably leak around the hatch seal the rest of its life. What happened, hit some ice?

[Sigma Projects]

Yea looks like you'd want a donor car to cut out large panels where the seam welds are.

BTW, what happened? How's your neck feeling?

[cknowles3]

BTW, what happened? How's your neck feeling?

A bunch of rubber-neckers in rush hour traffic gawking at a wreck in the clean up stages on the other side of the highway all jammed their brakes in front of me...  I didn't really get hurt other than twisted back and headache.  Unless you count the pain in my soul... that is still tender and raging!

So, I was in the right lane and cut over to the right shoulder to avoid the brake slanders in front of me and give room to the guy behind me.  But, guy behind me cut right with me and tapped my left rear just enough to break my rear end loose.  I spun all the way around the guy I was trying to miss, between him and the car he was trying to miss... then sideways across both lanes between the left lane brake standers... then the guard rail caught my right front side causing me to catch full in the steel cabling... the slide down the cables ended at the next post which is what caved in the right rear corner. 

Police officer that was working the original wreck on the other side of the highway came sprinting down to me with the wrecker guy... he said he saw the whole thing and saw me spin through all the traffic... also said somebody is looking out for me because he didn't know how I didn't get CREAMED coming across there! 

Playing it back in my mind's eye over the past few days, it could have been a WHOLE lot worse...  an inch here or foot there and I could have been T-boned or rolling over from a second impact...     

My primary disappointment, other than the painfully obvious, is that I won't be able to drive it for a while...  BUT, I am counting my blessings right now...  I have been given an opportunity to learn more about how our cars are put together!!

[swan song]

At least you didn't hit anywhere near the front. These cars have terrible front crash rating, even for the 80's. If you go watch the crash footage of our cars from the government it'll make you cringe.

[Sigma Projects]

Glad you're pretty much unscathed. Do you think you'll be able to get insurance money to help you with the damages?

[cknowles3]

Glad you're pretty much unscathed. Do you think you'll be able to get insurance money to help you with the damages?

Not likely at this point...  there's a long, painful story about 2 trips to visit my insurance agent's office that basically ended with this:
"I know that sucks and I wish there was more I could do... but I can give you this pen!"  *hands me a $.29 plastic pen*   

Well... this is the most expensive pen I've ever had...  I think I'm going to encase it in an acrylic block... maybe put a light in it and hang it in a frame!!! 
 

But, you know... when I get done with that, I'm going to send them a  #(&@*%!#  PICTURE OF IT!!!!
 

[Sigma Projects]

Damn, was hoping that the other driver's insurance might cough up some money.

[cknowles3]

Damn, was hoping that the other driver's insurance might cough up some money.

Yeah... that would have been EXTREMELY helpful, for sure.  But, my luck doesn't typically run that way, so I am not surprised by that particular twist.  Just have to see what the costs are now.  I took it to a local custom shop buddy to go through it and give me the out-of-pocket estimate... should know something today or Monday. 

One thing I did ask them was since they will likely have to repaint the whole car... how much extra will it cost to change the color?  My original 84 GTS was the midnight blue color they only did for a couple years.  If they have to paint it anyway, I would love to have this one be blue!  I love the color this one is, too... but the blue was the ONLY thing this car was different from my restoration dream.  I would rather not have gone about it this particular way...

Any of you painters out there know what that kind of change costs to do?  I have never painted a car before... so I don'the even know if that'sounds something I should try to take on myself or pay a professional to do...  really, same goes for body work...  I am pretty decent with tools, but I don'the have the specialty tools that I imagine are needed for a job like this.  Well... I do have a credit card... some folks would call that a tool!!  I usually use mine for scraping things! 

[danf]

Wow, that sucks...

Did you have collision or at-fault insurance on your car? I don't on mine because I know the insurance companies here will not pay to fix it if the car is over fifteen years old; it's well known. From your description of the accident, if you didn't have at-fault insurance, they'd have written it off as you following too close (your fault.)  Unless the insurance companies are way different south of the border - I don't get that impression, they're cheap-asses everywhere.

As far as painting, if there's no damage painting the car properly here will run about $1500-$2000. Keep in mind that's CAD$. You are going to have a lot of repairs and welding etc so it'll be a lot more than that.

I also agree your best bet is trying to find a parts car that has no damage to that side. As far as tools, you'd need a welder, something to shape the metal with (especially if you find a donor car, they might not be exactly the same) and a whole lot of patience. Welding sheetmetal is not a particularly easy thing to do either, especially if you're welding it for the first time (speaking from experience.) You'd also need a high flow compressor and a good paint gun. Good quality welders, compressors, and painting equipment usually aren't cheap either... and this is the major tools I've mentioned here. There's probably other smaller things you'd need as you went along.