metaruss

Well, the car is back together.  It’s not perfect, but it’s close.  I didn’t notice it before, but the right rear quarter is pushed in about 1/4″.  Also, somehow the subchassis is tweaked such that the taillight is mounting a bit high and the bumper a bit low on the right side.  It sort of spread things out.  It looks fine until you get up close.  Once these cars get bent, it’s really hard to get them back where they should be again.  Everything else lined up well, though the liftgate is not popping open as it should.  I suspect the latch is not operating as smoothly as it used to.  Still need to paint that trim below the taillights, but it will just have to stay red until the spring.

Putting the bumper back together was a bit of a pain.  All those stupid plastic studs broke off the bumper fascia when I got hit, so I ended up making bolts with very flat heads to mount them.  The heads are covered by the CSX fascia, so that’s no biggie.  I also threaded the CSX fascia studs so I could mount it to the bumper fascia with regular nuts.  A lot of the original push nuts were gone anyway, so this setup worked well and allowed me to adjust the tension for minimal warpage.