Mike Phillips

My 1974 260Z has been hit in an accident - Bumper Repair

Well my 260Z has been hit from the rear on the 91 Freeway here in Southern California duing the morning rush hour. It was a real slow moving accident, I'm not sure why the driver in the other car hit me? So far they've been nice about it.

The damage doesn't appear to be great but fixing it will require some new parts and hopefully only some re-alignment of the entire bumper. Here's some shots.

Dent where the bumper was pushed into the body panel.



The bumper appears to been shoved further towards the car than stock, you can see my hand pulling it away from the fender to show the mount has been sheared and is now broken.




On the passenger side, you can see the bumper is bent down and like the other side the mount has been sheared and is broken.




From all appearances this car has never been hit since 1974, so it's sad that it's happened now. Hopefully with a little work and some new parts I can get the bumper re-aligned and remounted.

The dent is small so I'm not sure how I'll proceed with it, there is bare metal showing so I need to do something to prevent it from rusting especially considering I have not found any rust on this car anywhere and I've inspected it very thoroughly. Amazing since rust with these cars is a noted problem especially after making it 33 years since leaving the assembly line.

Mike Phillips

Can someone tell me what the name of the broken bumper mounts are on the side of the car so that I can begin looking for replacement and be able to describe what it is I'm looking for exactly.


Thanks.


Mike

NismoPick

Meet your new best friend... when you need ANY z parts... check BlackDragonAuto or MSA.

http://www.blackdragonauto.com/icatalog/z/0022.asp


Since it wasn't your fault, why not just take it to a body shop???

skittle

+1 on that have them fix it and be done with it. Spend the money on some thing else you might want for it.

BoulderZ

Sorry to hear someone hit your car. Hope you've already got your and their insurance companies talking. They'll keep being nice right up until it's time to give you money for hitting your Z. Ditto the above advice about having a good body shop fix it for you, considering you shouldn't be paying for any of it.

My $0.02: I'd take care of the bumper on your own. There are very few good bumper straightening and rechroming operations around anymore (probably because there are very few chrome bumpers anymore). Hit that hard, yours is certainly not perfectly straight anymore. Given you're in Cali, check out Walker Chrome (530-275-3634) up somewhere around Shasta. Yes, they're expensive, and yes it's totally worth it. Given how light a 240 bumper is, shipping should be way cheap, too.
good luck, hope the repairs go well and quickly!
Dave

Mike Phillips

I went to two body shops today and both said they only take cars that are less than 10 years old. Went to a very well established mechanics shop and they said the same thing.

One of the guys at one of the bodyshops told me the local Maaco body shop will work on older cars so I can give them a try.

Does anyone know of any body shops in the SoCal area that work on older 260Z's like mine?

NismoPick

Pft... less that 10 years old!? So they wouldn't take a 95 BMW 740i? Yeah... right....

Mike Phillips

The body shops might have been longer but the Mechanics shop, one that's been in my home town since the 60's said 10 years.

The body shops were both state of the art body shops and they basically didn't want to work at trying to find parts. If it's not in their computer system they didn't want to work on it.

I'm going to try 2 other places but I have the Black Dragaon Auto Catalog on the way and I'll probably just fix it myself. The person that hit me said they would pay for the parts/damage and I can probably get a some extra for my own time and labor.

I'm not to bad at mechanicin... and I don't mind doing things myself as in some cases I will probably do as good or better work than someone paid to do it because I have more of a vested interest in doing the best work possible.

By the way, I found the same problem with finding a body shop to work on my 1973 2-wheel drive Blazer when the front clip was hit last fall. None of the modern body shops wanted to touch it, only the old-timer type shops.





I didn't even try to find someone when the rear extended fender on this got mashed, just re-glassed it myself.

skittle

Ohhh I Love The Bigbird Pannel Van Thing-a-ma-bob

Mike Phillips

The yellow truck is actually a real Milk Truck,it's a 1966 Chevrolet 1-Ton Dually Milk Truck. It came with a straight 6 cylinder engine but as it is pictured it has a 396 Big Block Chevy engine. I used it to call on accounts when I sold the Meguiar's Detailer Line to body shops, detail shops and car dealerships in Oregon.

Sold it a few years ago and if possible I'm hoping to buy it back some day as the guy I sold it to hasn't done anything with it but let it sit.

It was a lot of fun to drive and very dependable with a Turbo 400 transmission behind the 396.

Mike

Mike Phillips

The lady that hit me sent me an e-mail stating that her boss was an off-road racer and he viewed this thread and then told her to offer me $300.00

I told her if he'll drive out to my house and do the repairs for me for $300.00 and do a professional job then I'll let him as I'm pretty busy and didn't need this extra project in the first place.

She never did tell me why she drove her car into me as everyone was moving at about 1-2 miles per hour in stalled traffic?

I'll call her insurance company tomorrow and file a claim.

BoulderZ

$300 might barely pay for straightening and chrome on a bumper. Maybe. And being an "off-road racer" (whatever the hell that means) is hardly a mark in the plus column for body work savvy. Not a group known for high quality fit and finish. For 4-wheelers, dents and scratches are nice customization efforts. Works for them, but it has no place with sports cars or classics. Sorry to hear the scenario sadly went the usual route (people are nice until they have to pay for what they did). Hope the insurance company call goes smoothly and that your car gets fixed soon!
good luck,
Dave

NismoPick

^^^ exactly.

Her boss is a putz.