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Tyler

Tyler

Active member
So, I need to repair the coilover induced facelift ( :laughing4:) by pulling down on the tow hook and hopefully pulling everything else with it. Basically I'm going to attach a tow strap or something similar to the hook, and the other end to something in the ground or lower than the car and jack the car up to hopefully pull it all back down. I was wondering if someone had a jack that was pneumatic, or electric powered, as it would make it a lot easier to do this ...

Thanks! :help:

 
umm, your proposed solution sounds like a great recipe for breaking stuff.

the fix depends on what's bent. if it's just the bumper beam, you might need to jack there. it it's the front frame horn, you're talking body shop frame machine session. either way you'll need to pull the bumper cover off and inspect carefully to see whass bent. the forces involved are beyond the capacity of "pulling down on the tow hook and hopefully pulling everything else with it. " Your car weighs about 2800 pounds, and was traveling what maybe 10 or 20 mph when you hit. that's some real force, more than a borrowed jack is gonna give you.

if you tweaked the nose by bottoming out the tow hook, odds are it's more than just the bumper beam that's bent. those hooks are attached at the front end of front frame horns, and since those are DESIGNED to have some give in event of impacts, that's probly what's bent. get your car to a body shop, it deserves the care.

or just drive it with the nose tweaked.... :laughing4:

 
umm, your proposed solution sounds like a great recipe for breaking stuff.

the fix depends on what's bent. if it's just the bumper beam, you might need to jack there. it it's the front frame horn, you're talking body shop frame machine session. either way you'll need to pull the bumper cover off and inspect carefully to see whass bent. the forces involved are beyond the capacity of "pulling down on the tow hook and hopefully pulling everything else with it. " Your car weighs about 2800 pounds, and was traveling what maybe 10 or 20 mph when you hit. that's some real force, more than a borrowed jack is gonna give you.

if you tweaked the nose by bottoming out the tow hook, odds are it's more than just the bumper beam that's bent. those hooks are attached at the front end of front frame horns, and since those are DESIGNED to have some give in event of impacts, that's probly what's bent. get your car to a body shop, it deserves the care.

or just drive it with the nose tweaked.... :laughing4:
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Thanks Nigel .. I have however taken it to a collision center owned by a friends parents, with a frame machine, and was told after having it looked at that it would be cheaper and just as effective to give it a try myself. It was inspected by someone at the garage and much to their surprise, there was very little bent and they told me I could probably pull most of it out this way. The owner said it would take at LEAST 2 hours to just get it put on the machine and then who knows how long from there to straighten it out. I was told I should try it, doing only a little at a time and then if I still couldn't get it to bring it in to get it on the machine. I was all up for having it done professionally (because I'm gooooood at LOVING things up, obviously :tard:) but I figure if they are telling me otherwise, they must think it's worth it. So with that said, does anyone have something like this lying around? :nono:

P.S. I was SLOWLY backing out of the driveway, trying NOT to hit the big patch of ice OR the curb .. I missed the curb with the back wheel but clipped it with the front, so I was probably only moving a few mph at the time.

 
Is it hand powered? I believe the place where I'll be doing it has a couple of those, I was just trying to see if I could try to make my life easier :dontknow:

Thanks for the offer!

 
well, de ole Brute Force method does have its advantages...

I whacked a tree with the rally car. douched in the driver side headlight, smooshed the radiator, mangled the bumper beam, twisted the front frame horn, and tweaked the engine subframe. OK, most of that stuff was fixable...and I had a rally to run the next day. so, I moved the tow hook to the bent side, chained the car to the very tree I hit (seemed fair enough) and bakced up at 10 mph, BAM! 4 or 5 passes like that and things were a lot closer to being all lined up

a hand-pumped jack would give you the fine control you'd want to tweak things back into shape. or, try a Porta-Power unit, bet ya can rent one at autozone or whatever.

 
You think a hand pumped one would work fine? I didn't know if it would get rough to pump is all ... :thumbsup:

 
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