Wife's Jeep accident repairs. 7 hours of fun!!

[ghettocruiser]

Just figured Ide toss up a couple pictures of the repairs I did to my wife's 2000 yesterday. Just before xmas she got into an accident. Pretty much destroyed most of the front end. Bumper, fender, header panel, most of the lights, radiator, a/c condenser, fan shroud. All pretty much trashed.

I decided to fix it myself since we need the Jeep, and most body shops were backed way up due to all the winter accidents. So I tore it apart to see how much damage there really was.

Not too bad. Needed a little tweaking, but nothing major was damaged. Steering and suspension was fine.

I got VERY lucky and found a nice Jeep in her color that was being parted out. Drove out to Jersey and came back with a nice stash for very little money. This solved several issues, the biggest one being now I didnt have to paint anything. The parts jeep was still being taken apart, and I was able to remove the fender myself which was nice since I got to see how it came off.

Got a new grill and headlight surrounds from Quadratec for pretty cheap.

Pulled out some of the bent stuff. It all came out pretty easy. Im going to install a C-Rok or similar brace to brace up the bumper mount/steering box area. Just for piece of mind.

Then just started to fix and fit.

My wife digs the black grill. So do I. So for now Ill leave them. Also the new bumper came with foglights, so Ill hook them up. Came out ok. I just need to tweak the alignment a bit when its nicer and warmer.

J.

 

[Outlander560]

nice job! looks good

 

[H8PVMT]

Should have relocated the washer fluid reservoir while you could get to it easy



So you can cut the fenders. :scottm:

 

[billyjp2]

nice job

 

[kastein]

Looks good, that's actually the first repair I did on my XJ other than maintenance. Blew a brake line and slid it into a guardrail front passenger corner first, needed header panel, fender, bumper, and all the crap behind that got smashed too.

 

[ghettocruiser]

Should have relocated the washer fluid reservoir while you could get to it easy

So you can cut the fenders. :scottm:

Hahahah... I just read that to my wife and you should have seen the death stare I got. There was talks about me getting the Jeep when she's done with it. And I was going to move all of my 94's parts (I still have it...its been sitting for years ) onto her Jeep. Its not like we'll get THAT much for it by the time she's ready to move on. But I dont think i want to mess with a newer Jeep.

kastein...yeah it doesnt take much to pretty much destroy or at least mangle most of that stuff. The radiator is exposed and so close to the fan that any movement is an issue. That heater disintegrates if you hit it right. And with the way the bumper end caps bolt to the fenders, if the bumper gets pushed, the fenders buckle haha.

I got really lucky finding clean parts in the right color. I havent seen it out in the sun yet, but so far it seems to match plenty good. Especially for how little I spent to fix it.

J.

 

[HRKBackwoods]

Very Nice work Great Job! digging the black grill

 

[ghettocruiser]

Thanks!

Does anyone want the driver fender and flare and possible passenger side bumper end cap from the stash of "old parts"?

The flare is perfect, the fender only has minor soft denting and would be great if your trail rig has a bashed fender or if you are trimming anyway. The bumper end cap might be ok, I forget.

They're free though. Otherwise Im tossing everything in the dumpster along with the destroyed parts.

Let me know! They're in Norristown.

J.

 

[98muddyjeep]

repairs look good lucky the xj's are easy to repair,i did the same as you a while ago, i was hit insurance gave me 1400 to go to a body shop fixed the thing myself for 300 from part outs in the same chilli pepper red. You could never tell it was hit the fade on the new parts matched perfectly.