Hear a bang. (Check out this damage!)

[Fummins]

After looking at the pics in that order, it sure looks like whatever hit the muffler punched the k-frame up and put a round hole in it too.

[timw4mail]

Does it seem repairable for a reasonable cost?

[Fummins]

Does it seem repairable for a reasonable cost?

It's likely an insurance write off if you were to go that route. To fix yourself not too bad if you buy all used parts. If you were to pay a shop to fix, they'll likely use new parts so it'd probably cost more than the car is worth and labour would be expensive.

I have all the parts this thing will need. I just gotta go pull them off a car. It's -28C/-18F so I'm not too excited about it. The only thing I'm worried about is the 2 rear bolts that hold the crossmember in place don't appear to go straight up into the body, they're at an angle. It might have to get sent to a frame shop if that's the case. I've never seen damage to a crossmember like this before, I've seen almost every other kind of damage though.

[Fummins]

No wonder I drink. I just got into an argument with someone saying the heated mirrors don't work. Our cars don't have that option, the snowflake button is for the ac......

[foama]

Must have been one heck of a bang!

I think Einstein said, the only two infinite things are the universe and human stupidity...

[Mark]

No wonder I drink. I just got into an argument with someone saying the heated mirrors don't work. Our cars don't have that option, the snowflake button is for the ac......

If the A/C goes out on that car this coming summer & the same driver complains, you can tell s/he that same button is for the heated mirrors!

[Fummins]

Added a few pics, you can kinda see how bent everything is in the first one.
I was able to straighten out the 2 rear bolts that hold the frame to the body by threading them in a ways then used a 27mm socket and extension to go over the bolt and pry the bolt til it was straight. I could feel the weld holding the nut inside the body starting to break inside the body. Hope they don't break off and and spin if I ever need to remove them again! I sprayed them with copper coat and hoped for the best..

Other wise the new crossmember bolted up fine. I did have to replace the intermediate shaft(between steering column and rack and pinion) because it was collapsed about an inch and would not budge back into place.

I realized it's easier to just unbolt the upper part of the steering shaft from the column and remove it out the bottom with the rack and pinion. The upper part of the shaft has a master spline at the column, the lower part does not and can easily be misaligned requiring the frame to be dropped down a little to remove the shaft and try again...

Now I gotta go back out and pull the exhaust from a 17' burried in the snow. Probably shouldn't admit this but I had a complete exhaust in the shop and had a dealertard moment. Hung it in place and realized it was too short. It was from a 15' Derp derp!

[inuvik]

Wow!!

[Dodge Aries K]

Holy **** that's insane! Poor car!

[daleWV]

That's a really peculiar pattern to the hole punched in the muffler, almost like whatever it was had teeth.