Well as some of you saw in the classifieds recently my new driver in the house got a simple '98 TJ with a 2.5 and a manual transmission. Pretty basic unmolested jeep with 3 previous owners to our knowledge. PO coated all of the frame and undercarriage in POR-15 a year or so ago, also put on newer wheels with adapters. Fast forward a month or so and my son had an unfortunate icy road accident that was fairly unavoidable on his part, cars to both sides, red light and black ice doing a little over 20 mph in to the back of a Hyundai Santa Fe stopped at the light.
Well it took insurance a few weeks to get their end of things figured out and I bought it back yesterday for under $2k. Frame it getting measured and tweaked hopefully this next week. Jeep ran and drove fine from Logan to home and back to the body shop. Hood looks a lot worse than it actually is, the two small grill supports buckled and are holding it up. Luckily the urethane bonding the skin to the frame separated and other than the center support and two small creases on each side as seen above, it pops back to shape once you lift it up off the supports. Inner fender structures are buckled pretty good on each side from the top of the grill shell being pushed back about 3 inches and also up over the power steering lines. The only other issues I could find was a small buckle in the wiper cowl around the passenger hood hinge mount and then a little bit off a buckle in the tub at the driver's foot box area. Body shop guy confirmed it's a pretty minimal buckle in the tub for how visually screwed up the front sheet metal looks. He said the main reason for the insurance to call it a loss in his opinion, was the buckled tub, which he admitted he didn't even notice until washing it off and measuring everything while checking body mounts, and he almost missed it then.
Moving on, with this week's sales still going at Motobilt, I decided to order new high line fenders with 6" flare, rear double arch 6" flares to match and an inner fender kit. I could definitely fab the inner fenders, but I want to get the basics done and the rig back on the road as quickly as possible. I also went with the wider fender flares with future ideas in mind and not wanting to do fenders twice. The current plan is to swap the new fenders and grill shell on, cut the hood as needed and fit the rear fenders to match. Once everything is fitted and hung where it needs to be we'll pull it all off, prime and Raptor line the new pieces as well as the interior of the tub. Front bumper, SYE and a few other mods are also planned but still figuring out the details/scope creep. In the future depending on my boy's interest and ambitions it will end up with either a D44/8.8 combo or it could go full tons and steal the '08 SD60 and disc brake 14 bolt I have set aside for the ever present, never evolving K5 in my drive way that seems to just keep collecting parts and rust. If that happens a LC9/6L80 with either a 205 or 241 will end up in it as well as my hutchinson beadlocks I have squirreled away.
Well it took insurance a few weeks to get their end of things figured out and I bought it back yesterday for under $2k. Frame it getting measured and tweaked hopefully this next week. Jeep ran and drove fine from Logan to home and back to the body shop. Hood looks a lot worse than it actually is, the two small grill supports buckled and are holding it up. Luckily the urethane bonding the skin to the frame separated and other than the center support and two small creases on each side as seen above, it pops back to shape once you lift it up off the supports. Inner fender structures are buckled pretty good on each side from the top of the grill shell being pushed back about 3 inches and also up over the power steering lines. The only other issues I could find was a small buckle in the wiper cowl around the passenger hood hinge mount and then a little bit off a buckle in the tub at the driver's foot box area. Body shop guy confirmed it's a pretty minimal buckle in the tub for how visually screwed up the front sheet metal looks. He said the main reason for the insurance to call it a loss in his opinion, was the buckled tub, which he admitted he didn't even notice until washing it off and measuring everything while checking body mounts, and he almost missed it then.
Moving on, with this week's sales still going at Motobilt, I decided to order new high line fenders with 6" flare, rear double arch 6" flares to match and an inner fender kit. I could definitely fab the inner fenders, but I want to get the basics done and the rig back on the road as quickly as possible. I also went with the wider fender flares with future ideas in mind and not wanting to do fenders twice. The current plan is to swap the new fenders and grill shell on, cut the hood as needed and fit the rear fenders to match. Once everything is fitted and hung where it needs to be we'll pull it all off, prime and Raptor line the new pieces as well as the interior of the tub. Front bumper, SYE and a few other mods are also planned but still figuring out the details/scope creep. In the future depending on my boy's interest and ambitions it will end up with either a D44/8.8 combo or it could go full tons and steal the '08 SD60 and disc brake 14 bolt I have set aside for the ever present, never evolving K5 in my drive way that seems to just keep collecting parts and rust. If that happens a LC9/6L80 with either a 205 or 241 will end up in it as well as my hutchinson beadlocks I have squirreled away.
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