In April 2018, the Wagon was involved in a minor accident. There were several factors involved: it had just started raining, soft brakes, unfamiliar driver. As disheartening as it was, we built her once and we could build her again. To be honest, it was very disheartening though. Shows will have to wait for a awhile until we can return her to her former glory.
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The hood took the brunt of the damage. You can see just how far it is pushed back.
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The front fenders were pushed back into the doors. We had to be careful opening the doors to not cause more damage.
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The passenger side fender was crumpled back.
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The splash pan was sheared away from the bumper brackets, which were also bent.
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The sheared sheetmetal of the splash pan is obvious here.
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The bend in the hood. Hoods are the hardest panel to straighten out again, so this most likely means a different hood from a donor car.
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The radiator was pushed back into the fan blades.
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To make it easier to cover and store, father and son worked to straighten the hood out somewhat. They got it better, but still not reuseable without a LOT more work.
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The passenger fender chipped paint where it hit the door, mostly at this top edge.
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Time to remove the mangled metal to prevent cuts and to see which pieces can be reused.
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The front bumper is twisted and the splash pan is crumpled and torn beyond resuing.
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The core support looks twisted, but that could be from the other parts still bolted together pulling it out of alignment. This will need to be checked.
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One sheared bumper bracket. The steel is 3/8" thick, though it was an original one from 1956. It will be replaced with a new one.
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The Bronco held the reuseable parts.
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A better picture of how much they were able to straighten the hood. It will still be replaced.
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The inner fenders were also damaged.
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The fenders were removed and stored until we could tackle the repairs.
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Once the core support was removed from the car, it looked straight. We will try to reuse this.
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Time to rebuild her. Father and son started talking upgrades while we were at it, including AC, power steering, power brakes, and a manual transmission. The radiator was also upgraded to handle the extra load.
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Time to start repairing the fenders, if we can. New these are almost a grand, when you can find them.
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The inner fender was cut out and repaired first.
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New metal was welded in.
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One small area by a bolt had split, so it was welded up.
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The repaired sheetmetal.
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Now to fix the fender. The damaged metal will be removed and a patch panel made.
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This is the patch panel, ready to be welded in.
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To be sure the fender was straight, a hydrolic ram was used to persuade the metal to return to its original shape. This is never an exact science though.
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The patch panel is ready, but the fender was moved a bit too far by the ram. It should have more curvature. A few minutes with a body hammer fixed that.
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The patch panel tack welded into place. We will need to carefully stitch weld this in to prevent distortion in the metal.
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The top edge had crumpled in this area, so we fixed that while we worked on the patch panel.
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One patch panel welded in, ready for grinding.
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The grinding is done and the shape looks correct.
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Kurt trial fitted the chrome back onto the repaired fender to see if everything was correct. It all looked good. One down and one to go.
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