Hi,



I have a 2002 Acura TL S. I hit a deer the other night with it. Trying to see if it’s worth fixing or not. I will get some pictures up soon. But the hit was the driver side front. It left my steel bumper and foam pad un-touched. Took out the top of the core support and radiators, fans whatnot. I drove it home. Hood is kinked up and the driver side headlight is gone. Grill and bumper are toast, but it still runs. Needs a new radiator and AC condenser and fans.



My concern is the core support. How hard it that to replace? The frame under the fender is releveling straight still and I stage out the frame work where the headlight sits.

 

 

Unless you know how to weld and square the frontend then it's practically impossible.

 

My experience is its also the damage you cant see thatll doom a car. And since we cant see anything this question is impossible to answer.

 

 

 

Welcome to the forums. I deleted the new thread you posted since you already have replies in this thread.

 

Thats pretty significant damage for what we see and thats more than a kink in the hood. Body shop wise im guessing 2-4k to repair right

 

IDK my buddy can weld pretty good. I'm thinking since the headlight mounts are striaght enough and the seems where the top of the core support meet the B frame are basically ok. I might just head to a junk yard and hack off the peices i need and clean them up as best i can, take some measurements and weld the new bits in place, i'll bend the AC condenser back and drop in a new radiator, It runs fine as it sits. if it had a working radiator and lights and a new hood it would be driveable. Thoughts?

 

With the new parts yes the car is driveable. Structurally the car is fine.

 

If anyone can help source a donor or a decent yard around the Madison WI area i am interested. I'm going to start cutting when i get home from work. The plan is to aquire most of the core support and i can grind, whatever it down to where i need. My buddy has agreed to weld for me. I will post progress pics and detail any issues we run into just in case some one else gets in a bind like this. They will at least have a clue.

 

I got a line on a new core support. Going to hack it off on my lunch break at the office. We are so doing this!

 

You could probably fix all of that from junkyard parts.. Sub frame seems intact.

 

 

So… Three weeks later. I got it back together. It needs new body parts…. Oh, well. That stuff is easy. The important part is things are straight. Drilling out like 25 ends on each side kind of stinks. But I did this with a small hand drill and a reciprocating saw, and a nice BluePoint socket set my dad lent me. He shocking was real helpful. My dad is a GM guy and has no love for my tast in cars. But we spent a few days roughing up parts, drilling… re-drilling… I cut the power steering lines by mistake so I had to patch those. Installed new lights and aftermarket HID kit and buttoned it up tonight. She is now road worthy just ugly. Ugly I can fix.



If anyone has any questions about what we did if your find yourself replace the font end… feel dree to ask. I wrote down the bit sizes and screw and olt sizes I used. I did re weld the support since I ran bolts in to every weld hole. It’s plenty solid.



Ounce it was all drilled out and the new parts were prepped. It basically went together with little effort. As goofed as the hood was and panels were I straightened them enough to be able to safely drive it.

 

i lol'd at the helpful dad line.....

glad everything went well!
get a new hood!! and you'll be golden!

 

Oh man that was night and day better but yeah, hood or bust lol