Dallara & K24: Recovering From OffRoad Experience

[autox19]

I concur with the rest, I am glad you are ok!!! that could have been so much worse. Glad your spirits are not distinguished, only dimmed for the moment. This may not be correct, but I have a feeling, although you like the drive after, getting there is the most fun for you. To me I see a scale for "car guys" from drivers who love to drive, to the ones that like to mess with it and the driving part comes second. seeing your projects I think you lean towards the challenge. and I think you REALLY Spark many of us here who either live on that side, or getting some of the "driver" based people to start venturing to the dark side. I know after seeing some of your progress on your cars gets me motivated to get working on mine and I thank you for keeping (at least me ) on track.

looking forward to watching this come back better, faster, stronger...... (play six million dollar man music in the background as you read that)


Odie

 

[Dr.Jeff]

I see a scale for "car guys" from drivers who love to drive, to the ones that like to mess with it and the driving part comes second.

So true. I'm one of those that enjoys the build more than the drive. To me it is about expressing my own design and style through mods and customization. Originality, personalization, putting my emotions into it, making it mine. The product of that work is my form of art, and like all art I appreciate it for what it is rather than what I can do with it. I guess it's funny that my tastes are heavily influenced by race/competition vehicles, but I don't race or compete in any way...just doing it for my own pleasure.

 

[carl]

Having had Xs wrecked twice (actually three times if you include the one "event"). The first time was the light pole massacre and kind of a strange feeling came over me. I was not terribly upset and took the "things happen and nobody was hurt" attitude. Fortunately fixing the front was not that hard and more time was spent fending off you clowns. When both my Xs got totaled in front of the house (and it was pretty clear they were totaled) I went though the same mental process. But I did not have anywhere near the amount of time, effort and money that Hussein has in his X.

 

[dcioccarelli]

Door shunted the post

Hey Hussein,

really sorry to hear about this. The upside is that the repairs are pretty obvious, not like detailed troubleshooting issues that you had with some of the engine swap issues. Everything looks very repairable: the centre tunnel repair will provide the opportunity to use some stainless pipes which would have been required in any case at some point. For the rest, you have already invested in everything you need (welders, painting equipment, etc.) so no need (or excuse) to buy any new toys to fix this

The only photo that worries me a bit is the one above. You should check inside the front boot to make sure nothing is bent. You were lucky in that the post went down the middle of the car. I had a worse outcome in one of my X1/9s some years ago when a car forced me into the centre island and a pole lodged itself under the front right control arm which compressed that side of the car (the targa top didn't fit afterwards). Looking at where the pole went, it isn't the case for you however I'm concerned about what pushed the door backwards and whether it was temporary or something that requires straightening.

The easiest way to tell is by looking inside the front boot towards the nose and comparing the welds on both sides.

Anyway, good luck with the repairs. Knowing you it will be back on the road in a couple of days in better condition than before the accident!

Cheers,
Dom.

 

[Bia]

So sorry to hear about your accident, but glad to hear that you are OK!

 

[LarryC]

Hussein,
This makes me kind of sick. But let me try to put a positive spin on this from my experience. I had a garage fire that took out two of my restored vehicles. It is worse than that. I had just completed a conversion of a crate engine to EFI with all the bells and whistles the same day. Even took pictures of the completed project. That night there was a thunderstorm and a voltage surge shorted out a compressor, it over heated and caught fire, and so on and so forth. (Moral: do not ever leave anything plugged in in the garage. This word of advice from firemen, who have seen it all, multiple times.) In the end I ended up doing a complete body-off restoration of one of that vehicles and it is now a show winner, multiple times. The thing is, that in the process of rebuilding I had already done most of the stuff before, so the second go-around I had a chance to do it, not only quicker, but also fixed things that I felt were not quite right the first time. So in the end, it turned out to be a good thing. It’s just that it took a couple of years of delayed gratification. But, by God, it was even better than before. That’s my spin, and I am sticking to it.

Sorry for your troubles, but I’ll bet the results of your recovery effort are going to be even more spectacular.

 

[lookforjoe]

The only photo that worries me a bit is the one above. You should check inside the front boot to make sure nothing is bent. You were lucky in that the post went down the middle of the car. I had a worse outcome in one of my X1/9s some years ago when a car forced me into the centre island and a pole lodged itself under the front right control arm which compressed that side of the car (the targa top didn't fit afterwards). Looking at where the pole went, it isn't the case for you however I'm concerned about what pushed the door backwards and whether it was temporary or something that requires straightening.

The easiest way to tell is by looking inside the front boot towards the nose and comparing the welds on both sides.

Anyway, good luck with the repairs. Knowing you it will be back on the road in a couple of days in better condition than before the accident!

Cheers,
Dom.

Yes- this concerned me when I saw it exiting the car. I looked the nose area under the hood, around the towers & bulkhead seams & couldn't see any sign of movement. Clearly the whole body flexed, however the doors both open & close normally so I think I'm OK there. That door was a non-rusted one I bought that was 'tweaked' at the front jamb, so it has never fit evenly along the rear quarter line, I'm going to assume that is why the impact at that point.

EDIT: This did continue to be an issue with the door jamb - had the frame tweaked Apr/May 2022

 

[lookforjoe]

Hussein,
This makes me kind of sick. But let me try to put a positive spin on this from my experience. I had a garage fire that took out two of my restored vehicles. It is worse than that. I had just completed a conversion of a crate engine to EFI with all the bells and whistles the same day. Even took pictures of the completed project. That night there was a thunderstorm and a voltage surge shorted out a compressor, it over heated and caught fire, and so on and so forth. (Moral: do not ever leave anything plugged in in the garage. This word of advice from firemen, who have seen it all, multiple times.) In the end I ended up doing a complete body-off restoration of one of that vehicles and it is now a show winner, multiple times. The thing is, that in the process of rebuilding I had already done most of the stuff before, so the second go-around I had a chance to do it, not only quicker, but also fixed things that I felt were not quite right the first time. So in the end, it turned out to be a good thing. It’s just that it took a couple of years of delayed gratification. But, by God, it was even better than before. That’s my spin, and I am sticking to it.

Sorry for your troubles, but I’ll bet the results of your recovery effort are going to be even more spectacular.

I do have to agree that many times what seems like a diaster has been a blessing in disguise. Not at the stage where I can fell that way about the car yet, however I do have life experience with other events that substantiate the notion

Larry - I can't seem to find the link to your AC thread - I need to order another of the condensers since mine has ruptured. Do you have the PN handy?

EDIT - Found it. I think I'll have to find the receipt - for some reason I have it in my head that the one I bought was not the same height/width (11"x22") as yours. Can't find my head-on pic I took when installed it, where I might be able to count the tab mount holes to compare.

Roger's pic (my rad is taller, so have to ignore that)

EDIT - looking at Nostaglic Air 44-1119 or 44-1220 & Cold Hose - I went with the 12x26 (#44-1224 - 11x24 core) from ColdHose.

EDIT - I rechecked the space available, and 12x26 just won't work, has to be no more than 11" height to safely clear the top & not sit below radiator. I could get away with 11x24, but no-one seems to list such a thing. I was going to go with the 11x22 from Nostalgic, however their shipping rates are high - more thn double what ColdHose charges. Before I committed to the purchase I doubled checked just searching 11x20 parallel condenser - and found one on eBay for $49.99 shipped, so I'm going with that.

 

[rjplenter]

I feel sick too!

 

[ted83x]

You might look into different classic car insurance. Mine is agreed value, I bet you could set the value much higher. I think for lower value cars, less than 50K they don't seem to care much about the customer asked for value. My Maserati, I asked for a value, more than I paid, no issue, but the value I asked for wasn't a huge amount. The below info might not be the correct person to get started, but I am sure she can forward you to the right person.
My annual cost for 2 cars is only $250. I think most of there coverage is for much higher value cars.

 

[lookforjoe]

You might look into different classic car insurance. Mine is agreed value, I bet you could set the value much higher. I think for lower value cars, less than 50K they don't seem to care much about the customer asked for value. My Maserati, I asked for a value, more than I paid, no issue, but the value I asked for wasn't a huge amount. The below info might not be the correct person to get started, but I am sure she can forward you to the right person.
My annual cost for 2 cars is only $250. I think most of there coverage is for much higher value cars.

It didn't occur to me to contact them (American Collectors Insurance), primarily becuase I would never give it to another party to have repairs made. I'm thinking about the final paint, though. Still, I will need to get in touch to adjust the agreed value after it's back together, I assume they may want to confirm the condition, can't find any info regarding that on the website...

 

[ted83x]

Not sure how self repair works with car Insurance, if it is totaled you can buy it back, not sure what the options are if it is not totaled. I think at the value range that we are at, less than 50K they need some pictures but they don't seem to care to much. Higher value stuff they may want more info. A car that has increased value based on modifications could be a little tricky but I am sure they have worked with that before.
Can the Insurance company pay the owner to repair the car? If you get a estimate from a shop, will they just give you check based on the estimate?

Sad to see what happened after all the work you did.

 

[MikeHynes]

Insurance laws vary from state to state. In Illinois it is unlawful for the insurance company to allow you to "buy your car back" if it has been totaled. I'm not sure if you could buy it from an insurance auction (Copart), and still get a title though.
In some cases the insurance company would give you a check for the damages to your car, and with a car such as this it may be easier for the insurance company to cut a check than to find an approved body shop that would agree to tackle the job. Depends on the insurance company, and possibly on the person assigned to the claim. When you're dealing with a collector car type insurance company they might be able to recommend a body shop that would accept the job?

 

[bpimm]

It makes me feel sick as well, Glad you're OK and the car is fixable but it's hard to get over the depression something like this causes. When I was a youngster I had just finished a fully welded on custom Air Dam (Long before splitters were the thing) and on a dark rainy night in the local Taco Bells parking lot I turned around just like I always did and they had just put a new divider curb in, no lights in the lot and this was back when headlights did almost nothing on the dark rainy nights. Destroyed the Air Dam and buckled both front fenders. Learned a valuable lesson about having things that can contact the ground welded solid. After that I tried to mace spoilers break away.

You can make it better, just get in the right mind set first.

 

[lookforjoe]

Did some tree branch trimming after work today, it was too late to start painting on the house, so I decided to tackle the buckled radiator support bracket

Before:

After:

Pretty much everything attached buckled or twisted in varying degrees, so I had to straighten everything to make it all fit again. Turns out the AC condensor is actually not ruptured - I started to remove it & freon started leaking out - so I buttoned it back up. I'll change it out anyway DTR, it looks all ****ulated where the spoiler pushed into it

Put the grille mesh back on for now - made a channel to hold the lower edge & riveted it to the fenders, to also help hold what's left of the left side together

For right now, I think I'm going to cut up this S40 rear bumper cover to make a spoiler section until I can deal with it properly

I'm going to follow Tim's suggestion & support the drivetrain & drop the subframe to change the oil pan (rather than drop the entire drivetrain). Then I can run the motor & make sure it sounds OK. I just want to know the motor runs OK before I take it all apart.

 

[carl]

Isn't it swell to have something to do this spring/summer. Anything to keep you from house painting, right?
And since you won't be driving your X to Carlisle, in support I won't drive mine. Weather will dictate GTI or Fiata or Covid will determine an empty show field.

 

[lookforjoe]

I'm comtemplating cutting back the nose, closer to the actual Dallara. It would mean reworking the fender corners, as they extend beyond the stock nose to accomodate the nose section

The idea would be to clean up the lines & get rid of the extra length, and not have to rebuild the complexity I had in place

closer to this, which looks closer to the original

There is this one also, however the ridge carries out too far & the headlamps are set too low

Hard to make out details on the known actual Dallara - I may not have that raised ridge, since I cut off the stock lip when I added the fibreglass nose section

 

[carl]

Is your goal a serious, exacting replica or a tribute where the differences to the original may only be obvious to you?

 

[lookforjoe]

Is your goal a serious, exacting replica or a tribute where the differences to the original may only be obvious to you?

Not exacting replica by any stretch - I'll adjust where I need to - I just want to make sure I keep enough definition where it's needed so the front is not just a flat panel. What I'm thinking is chop back the fibreglass nose piece & reattach much closer to the stock nose end, that will still give a little accent & retain the recess intended (I assume) for license plate attachment. The fender ends have much more of a taper than the original, cuttign them back will result in a fair amoutn of work to resolve the plane shifts that will result. I'm thinking I may back-fill the fender/nose cavities with a bunch of expanding foam so that when I chop them off, I don't have a big hole to deal with.

Fiberglass repair is not something I have much experience with - I've been looking at various websites for tips on patching/merging new to old pieces - boat websites like the clippings below are helpful

 

[Rodger]

I would agree with your move to bring the nose back closer to the original. As nice as your first result was, it always looked to me like it was too heavy appearing in the front. I chalked it up to camera angles but obviously you felt it too. Good luck and will follow your progress with interest, as always.