Toyota GR86, 86, FR-S and Subaru BRZ Forum & Owners Community - FT86CLUB

Day 0:
Car got dropped off by the trucking company: Raber's Auto Transport, the guy's (Leo Raber) attitude wasn't great and hes got questionable reviews all over the internet but I didn't know about it until after I already paid the deposit and things were rolling. :slap: He called me to tell me his differential broke down and it would be delayed 3 days. Then he called again to delay another day. Took two weeks to get from NY to Texas.

The car was shipped to a local shopping center with better parking for a truck. This shopping center also has a Harbor Freight so I picked up a rope to tie down the hood while I drove it back. On the way back the battery gave out so I had to get a new one from Sears. Size 35 which is conveniently on sale right now. Got the battery installed and drove it limping back. The fender liners were torn and rubbing against the tires the whole way so I cut them off. The driver side airbag was deployed and in the way and I kept honking when turning so I also cut it out along with the Subaru logo piece. After looking under the hood I decided I should not be driving it until I get more parts. After it went dark I began searching for what I may need. Craigslist came up with a cheap FRS bumper in Dallas.

Day 1:
Took a 6 hour roadtrip to Dallas in my DD Forester (in the background of some pictures). The view isn't all the spectacular and the traffic was pretty bad due to construction most of the way. Google maps and Waze both failed to work properly in the construction zones.

Got home with the new bumper and gave it a shower:
http://imgur.com/4iGVjTm.jpg

Theres some slight damage to it but I'll get it looking fancy later:
http://imgur.com/8wUj0q7.jpg

I'm going to try some cheap acrylic paint from Walmart for the bottom as a test bed. If it looks ok I will try with the rest of it:
http://imgur.com/Prk8dOH.jpg

Day 2:
Fender Work Part 1:
http://imgur.com/SmZqL5B.jpg

Pulling the fender took about 10 minutes because I don't have all the right tools yet so I had to improvise. Also the dents up front made it a little harder. The bottom of the fender attaches to the pinch welds where you should jack and that part had an immense amount of paint around the 2x 10mm bolts.

Before:
http://imgur.com/ikp8TTi.jpg

After:
http://imgur.com/AHAtJuM.jpg

Took about 4 hours of work to get it to where its at. Some paint chipped but thats to be expected around the rusty crinks. I dont know how the bumper attachment piece is supposed to look so I will have to do some more research before I can get it to look and fit right.

Using a soft cloth (to keep the paint intact) I started to work bending back the edge of the wheel well. As you see here the cloth is double layered for added protection. It gives less tactile feedback through the pliers but provide less harsh bends. Also note the bent part up top (has Subaru printed on it):
http://imgur.com/N06nh90.jpg

As you bend it with flat pliers(see below) try not to bend too much at one time or the paint will crack. Rule of thumb for me is move about half the tool width with each bend and only about 5-10 degrees of bend each time. I probably went back and forth through the whole edge 6 times to get it back to 90deg.
http://imgur.com/XvSRJzp.jpg

Note the chipped paint on the bottom edge. When going over this area try to keep the cloth away as it will catch paint and rip it off in chunks.
http://imgur.com/NHuq0UA.jpg

Looks about done. I also worked out the crink with the Subaru logo.
http://imgur.com/UD0aBcx.jpg

This is a ratchet that I used to bend out the large dent in the fender. I would have prefered something about baseball to grapefruit sized solid ball to work with but thats all I had with a 3D curve. Use a cloth around your tool of choice and a rubber band to keep it in place.
http://imgur.com/RJgGQVG.jpg

Gonna leave it like this for now. It can still be worked on but time vs reward didn't seem worth it with my tools. As you bend that piece make sure you have something soft below it so you don't scratch. It would be easier if you had someone hold the fender at an angle while you bend away but this was not the case for me. As I put force down on this end the other end would fly up. Make sure when you make bends apply a light force at first to test if it bends and progressively increase your force so you don't want to have a bulge that will also crack paint.
http://imgur.com/Xh0CN0U.jpg

Still has some scratches on the paint. But I'm gonna leave it like that for now.
http://imgur.com/uezpmFR.jpg

I also removed the broken airbox, hood gasket on the radiator support, and had a better look under the car at the damage.