My Camry was in a fender, hood, bumper, and headlight bender

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Not to be argumentative, but those are original extremely low mile 1200 and 1300's?

We're talking 50+ years old.

Some of those cars were bought brand-new by their current owners, who kept them for such long times. And even though those cars are mantained properly, they're not such low-mileage trailer queens.

[Xist]

Haven't I been making Camry updates in other threads?

Crazy J straightened out a bunch of stuff under the hood, but now there is a huge gap between the fender and the hood, so now my car looks worse.

I believe this is the core support right after the accident:


I did some pulling with a tree and my giant cargo strap:


Better, but not great:


I did some straightening with the angle iron and some C-clamps as well as a vise.

Yes, a vise:


Crazy J used spray paint?


While Crazy J straightened everything under the hood, the fender twisted outward, creating a big gap, so the professional made my car look worse.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!


I think that I need to figure out how to attach the inside edge of the fender to a long angle iron and then pull the whole thing with the tree and my giant cargo strap.

Come on!

I can't just drive around with Tesla-sized panel gaps!

I thought that it just needed a little more work, but he billed me for 4 hours, and kept talking about how much he needed to straighten under the hood.

Who thinks that was the important part?!

He said that he needed to remove my radiator to activate the realistic straightening action, which made it a much bigger deal.

It would have been cheaper to tow my car there and have him install the radiator?

I keep telling people what I need to do with this car and then forgetting the next time, so I keep wondering if I remember everything.

Crazy J didn't want that core support to rust, so he spray-painted it. I don't want it to rust, either, but I am going to have an automotive paint shop in Mesa mix me a can, and start touching up parts with that, like the core support.

Crazy J and I established a week ago that it would be better to replace the core supports, but he would need to remove the spot welds and spot-weld the new piece in place.

However, today he said that he would have charged me the same amount for it.

I ran across the full radiator support when I was trying to figure out which bolts I was missing.

It turned out they were the ones in the little bag in the garage.

Anyway, the body shop said they needed to replace this:


The whole thing is spot-welded together and spot-welded to the rest of the car.

The red arrows are the core supports that Crazy J and I straightened and Toyota sells the radiator support for $700, but I found an aftermarket one for $168, although it was $138 when I first found it.

That doesn't have any of the brackets that I already replaced!

RockAuto has it for $56, but shipping would be $313!

I realized there was another bent bracket, so I bent it back. I thought that it looked fine, but Crazy J removed it saying that it was too bent and if he straightened it it would break, and he would need to weld it back together, so now I need to figure out what that part is.

Eureka!

It is the Bumper Cover Support Rail (Right, Front). It is $20-30 from Toyota or $8 on eBay, but 2 pins with heads are spot-welded to the back. They are a little over $1 from a dealership, but I would need to order them from the local place to avoid $11.10 in shipping!

Then I would need to pay Crazy J [or some welder] to do 4 spot welds for a part that I can totally install myself easily.

He realized that the driver's-side headlight is missing a clip, so it wobbles. I cannot find it on a parts diagram. I will get back to that, but here it is:


I need to reinstall the splash guard, shine and clear-coat the headlight, replace the shocks, and finish repairing the dent in the trunk lid.

I don't need to do all of that before I have my vehicle inspected, but I should replace the shocks before I drive this car regularly:


I believe the car will cost $920 to buy back from insurance.
$200 for used parts.
140 for a radiator
240 to have Crazy J create a body gap
Several hundred dollars in Pixie sticks that I needed just to get out of bed this morning.
Someone is going to figure out how to support their narrative. It may not make sense to the rest of us, but they will do it.

[freebeard]

Pixie sticks

It looks like they go for about $10 a pound. Did you get them delivered?

Someone is going to figure out how to support their narrative. It may not make sense to the rest of us, but they will do it.

Uhm, Okay?

[Xist]

You have heard of bottle service?

It is like that, except delivered by high-priced pixies.

[redpoint5]

I used to care about vanity when my 2001 motorcycle was 2 years old. Much damage later I gave up. Old things don't need to look good unless it's entered into a competition where old things should look good.

Women aren't parsing the difference between a pristine '04 Camry and one that could look better.

[freebeard]

I used to care about the Superbeetle when it was 40 years old, but I've spun it twice on wet or icy pavement.

I've got two replacement fenders (and an engine), but they will probably be gray primer for a while after they go on.

[Xist]

I have been trying to clean my headlight.

[redpoint5]

Headlights are an easy way to make a car look much better.

Throw a coat of Helmsman Spar Urathane on or it will yellow quickly from UV.

https://www.amazon.com/Minwax-632004...030795174&th=1

[Xist]

I don't know what is going on with my desktop. It keeps saying that my CPU and RAM are about 50% capacity, but I have spent almost half an hour trying to pull up this thread on my desktop. I posted it on my phone and wanted to fill in the details here, but Compy just wasn't cooperating.

This is the junkyard headlight before and honestly, I wouldn't have minded:


However, this is the undamaged side:


I cannot tell if mine or better or worse than Mom's, but she periodically tells me to redo hers. I have a can of spray UV-resistant clear coat for plastic in the garage, but I don't know that I used it on her headlights:


I definitely did not use it on whichever Civic headlight I cleaned.

You cannot even tell now.

All that I remember is using toothpaste. I still have the tube! If I could have found my new tripod I would have filmed it. I thought I was so clever!

I was going to use a Dollar Tree toothbrush to apply my Dollar Tree toothpaste. However, other guys on YouTube did that, and one guy scrubbed his headlight with his toothbrush.

I was just going to apply it.

Then I was going to pull out my buffer and make short work of it, but my buffer cover comes off after 1-5 cycles. I tried spraying with water, but the pad still came off too quickly.

Even though I searched for "Cleaning headlights toothpaste buffer," it gave zero results for people using toothpaste and buffers, just commercial products and buffers, or toothpaste and a washcloth--or a toothbrush.

I would have been the first!

I kept stopping to adjust the cover, but it didn't seem to be doing anything, so I scrubbed for 5 minutes with my handtowel. My washcloth would have made a better choice, but it was already wet, and my handtowel already had toothpaste on it.

Every minute either I reapplied the toothpaste or I sprayed it again, then I used the damp washcloth that I should have used to scrub to wipe it off, then I dried it with the clean part of the handtowel.

I did something:


A couple of guys said to use a whitening toothpaste with baking soda. ChrisFix said you could add baking soda if your toothpaste didn't already have it.

What about a baking soda paste?

I did a quick search and everybody mixed baking soda and vinegar or lemon juice.

Are they trying to neutralize it?

It is well past dark. I have a crazy-bright headlamp, but I need to replace 4 AA batteries each time that I use it for very long. It came with off-brand batteries, but I replaced them with Energizers, and already replaced them.

In the morning I will try the washcloth and a baking soda paste, then my clear coat.

Here I thought I needed to buy wet-dry sandpaper!

I mostly attached the splash shields Saturday night. I am going to jack my car and put in the 3 in the back.

Is there anything else I need to do before I get this car inspected? I need to replace the shocks, but I cannot imagine the officer will inspect them.

[redpoint5]

Oh, I thought you did it already.

I'd get a kit to cut down on elbow grease, especially since this isn't the last one you'll be doing, and because it's like $9

Amazon

Removing the headlight makes it easier to polish and eliminates the need to tape off or possibility of damaging the surrounding area.