Help Rebuild...Radiator Support

[HatchSpeeD]

Ok, i'm thinking about rebuilding my hatchback and turning it into a track car. From just a visual point of view it seems the radiator support, fenders & hood took all of the damage. Does anyone know how much generally a radiator support would be to install? Can anyone reccommend a good body shop in mass? (north or south shore area)

 

[TurboMirage]

to tell you the truth, the best body shops in my area are all run by puerto-ricans. they do AMAZING work to civics and the like.

theres even a turbo 1.8 4g coupe like mine running around

 

[Battle Pope]

the core support itself isn't that much money. I'm gonna get mine from www.partstrain.com

if you can spot weld, hell, DIY that shit.

 

[HatchSpeeD]

Thx for the link...unfortunetly I don't know how to weld. I need to figure out how to get estimates on the damage without towing my car to every shop. I just need to find a good local body shop that I can trust.

 

[phyregod]

I just got a hood, bumper support, bumper cover, radiator support, etc done on my 92 hatch.

I ordered the parts myself and they came in around $450ish.. I don't quite remember.

There was a little bit of frame damage, so I took it to a shop after removing the old rad support myself (a bit of a chore, let me tell you) And they charged me $360 to straighten the frame and weld up the new rad support. I installed everything else.

So All total to get the sheetmetal and bumper factory straight, it cost me a total of $810. But I didn't have to buy new fenders, mine were just fine.

The core support alone was only like $75. Shipping is what costs alot.

*edit*
Now I'm saving for paint and painting supplies. Going to be out another $500 to paint the front end myself. I'm figuring about $250 on paint and supplies and $250 for a nice used paint gun.

All the shops around here want $1200 to paint the front end. They can shove it.

 

[Celerity]

Yeah, DIY is real simple for the radiator support. I'm even thinking of grabbing a cheap, $10 strut bar (any make) and modifying it. Of course, I'm Sanford and Son's performance.

If you can grab the flatter bar, you can make the mount holes for it too. Or, you can bend up some steel stock to wrap the bar, and slide them around to match up to your radiator's mounting points. With that in place, you can also wrap some steel stock around the bar to go up to the upper radiator mount, and you can mount the radiator that way.

Aerospace, brothah.