[Pecosbill]

Urhere2, you have mail. Many thanks for your offer. If it turns out to be inconvenient for you don't go way out of your way. I really appreciate your help and the help of everyone on this board. We really need a giant "Performance Years Get Together" sometime for everyone on the board (in Texas, of course).

[urhere2]

I went out to DVAP around 12 and they were closed. They are supposed to be open until 2. Sorry I couldn't get a look at the panel for you. My next day off is Fri but you'll most likely have it already.

[Pecosbill]

No problem, urhere2. Many thanks for the attempt and the offer. Let me know if I can return the favor.

[mrtonegto]

Pecosbill:
Won't take you through all the details but a kid hit my wife after hitting the car behind her. He ran out of money fixing that car. Ended up taking him to small claims court. Judge had him pay us $50. a week but got the money after 19 months. Keep records.

[Pecosbill]

Got the estimate from the body guy and Farmers has agreed to pay all. Includes, in addition to fixing the quarter and door and repairing or replacing outer wheel well, stripping clear coat off the decklid, both doors, both quarters and roof and re-applying to make sure it all has same sheen. Also includes a rear end alignment. Metal guy estimates over a full week just to stretch, shape and shrink quarter. Even though car was hit on passenger side rear quarter, the driver's door somehow got misaligned in the accident, chipping some of the paint when it was opened. This was in the area of the purple flames. Farmers has also agreed to fix that. They seem to be being very fair so far. Work begins on the car tomorrow (3/25) and is estimated to take three weeks. I'll be checking on it quite frequently and will post pics.

Thanks to everyone for their sound advice and help.

[Edward Farrell]

I dont know about the south doin it again Pecos but GOOD on you about the insurance. Hope the repairs come out well. Pretty car!

[Barrier Blue]

That's good to hear. Hope it turns out as well as expected.

[PetesPonies]

you cannot strip clear off a paint job. I would assume they mean to repaint the clear, which will be over the existing clear. Any time you sand through clear, yopu have to reapply the base color because it won't look right. This is just the way it has to be. So nobody will be trying to remove just the clear as you would have to reapply the base, etc.

[Pecosbill]

I don't know the answer to that, Pete, but I will find out.

[PetesPonies]

for your benefit, you should find out so you will know exactly what is being done to your car. I know these facts from experience as I paint cars )

[ponjohn]

Frankspontiacparts has rustfree rolling 64 shell.

A quarter and then some:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...ayphotohosting

[Bob Moore]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...=STRK:MEBWA:IT

[FLORIT]

The driver's side door somehow getting misaligned sounds scary. Considering it was a secondary collision, you wouldn't think it was too hard a hit. But in my youth, I hit a telephone pole with a '76 Malibu, right on the right rear wheel. When the wrecker pulled it onto level ground, it sat with the right rear wheel off the ground. Total loss. Man, I DO hope there's no frame damage on your gorgeous car. Looking forward to hearing how it turns out.

[Raven19]

Ugh don't you hate idiot drivers?

About 1.5-2 years ago I was in my 72 formula 400 firebird at a stop light that comes right off a highway that turns into a street. On my way to college classes, waiting at a red alight along with about 30 other cars (heavy traffic). Some idiot in a honda civic comes flying off the highway going 50-60 mph, prolly wasn't paying attention to the fact that everyone had stopped, and plows into a ford F-150 (yea one of them big ass lifted trucks) who then plows into me. The Civic slammed his brakes at the last second, and I saw in my rear view mirror a bunch of tire smoke and knew what was comming, so I braced the steering wheel and prepaired for the hit. It's too bad that it was heavy traffic because both lanes on either side of me where backed up, otherwise I woulda quickly pulled into one of them to avoid the hit. I was boxed in more or less.

Totally crunched my rear end, sent the bumper about a foot deep into the trunk area, also the passenger side body crumpled up due to the fact that It had bondo body work done years prior.

Car wasn't show quality or anything but it was worth about 6k in the condition it was in, and I loved it. But the thing that pisses me off is the fact that I just had the engine rebuilt not more than 1-2 months earlier. And now I had a totalled car. Repairs woulda been well over 6k, and I'm pretty sure the frame got bent. So I had to sell the car to the insurance company. Luckily I saved all the receipts for work I had done so I almost broke even on the car. But it was just a waste of a new engine, that they prolly just trashed.

I woulda liked to have keept the engine since it barely had 1,000 miles on it. But it woulda taken too much time to find a donor car, transplant the engine, and fix anything else wronge with the donor car, ect.. ect.. In a time when I needed a ride ASAP, so I just took the cash.

And I guess it turned out for the best because soon after I found a 400 firebird in the LA area for only 3k on ebay. I snatched it up quick and drove it home. And talk about a steal, this firebird had 55k miles on it and it hasn't even turned over. First owner was some old lady who never drove it, 2nd owner was some guy in LA who keept a car cover and a club on it and let it set in the driveway. The interior was amazing, paint was starting to chip, but other than that it was a clean ride. Better condition than the 72 formula, but definatly far less horse power. But I look at it like this, I traded the 72 for a 73 and got to keep 3k for myself.

[Pecosbill]

Bob, I did see that quarter panel on eBay and told my bodyman about it. He doesn't think I need it, but it's good to know they're out there. If it wasn't so steep I'd considering buying it to have around "just in case."

Also, Dan and John, I found a full quarter (used) at Desert Valley Auto Parts (http://www.dvap.com) for $750 plus shipping. These parts are out there, but it sure seems like you have to hunt around a lot to come up with them.

Raven, the thing that really torques me up about all of this is that the idiot who hit me is just sitting at home watching TV and not having to worry about a thing while the owner of the truck he hit and I have to go through all sorts of crap just to get our vehicles back (hopefully) to where they were prior to his act of stupidity. But I'm sure at some point in his life he'll get his turn in the box.

[Pecosbill]

Went to check out the progress so far. It's absolutely amazing what a good metal man can do. (Bodywork being done by Precision Bodies, Schertz, Texas)

[karl emerick]

you need to post pics of the process. love seeing an artist at work

[Pecosbill]

And another.

[Pecosbill]

Pete: The body man told me that he will be using very fine wet sanding of the clear, not taking it down to the paint, and then he will be re-applying clear (8 coats) to almost the entire car. He says he will then wet sand off almost three of the coats to finish the job.

It's really interesting to see how they pulled the quarter panel out. They welded brass rods to the panel, attached a taut line to the rear of the car and then pulled on the rods at the same time they pushed from the inside. After getting the quarter pulled out they then cut off the brass near the base and then just ground the remaining brass off. Then he used a mallet and a form to smooth out the rough spots, constantly shrinking the metal back each time they thinned it with the pounding.

Fortunately for us the body guy told me that there had never been any major work done to the panel and it was still very thick and sturdy metal. That was a big relief to him, as he has more material to work with. He has also pulled out the dent around the door handle...you'd never know it was there. One of the best things about this guy is that he hates bondo and won't use it if there is anyway to get around it.

He says we may be ready to go by next weekend.