Replacing Front Crossmember - Crashed :(

[wildejon 7]

A guy who owns my old 205 managed to front end it the other day, a fair few bits need replacing:

Bonnet, lights, bumper, trim, rad, fan unit and the lower cross memeber...

 

I think I can do it all apart from the cross member which I believe is welded on, does anyone know how I would go about removing this and replacing with a new one? I guess I need some outside help as I cannot weld, anyone live local to Worthing and fancy lending a hand?!

 

Thanks!

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Rip it to bits first and have a look, you may be able to pull the crossmember out to a suitable standard.

[wildejon 7]

Will do, might be a few weekends away, just trying to figure out what is feasible

Thanks mate

[Rob Turbo 3]

You could bolt it on if you had to, the crossmember overlaps the pannels either side of it by a good ammount and IIRC is held on with 3-4 spot welds, so a few nuts and bolts either side instead would be up to the job easily, it's not structural, more or less just there to hold the rad.

[wildejon 7]

Sooo..... I had a look this morning.

Looks like a lot more than just the crossmember needs replacing. The bits near the wings (might be the same part, not sure) around the headlights are all warped, the passenger side especially! Also, along the top of the wing where there is a groove 'designed' to put nuts and bolts as you work on the car, there is a warp either side, only small but it makes me wonder how far all this goes...

Pics here

 

Any advice welcome, tempted to suggest it might be better a garage does this rather than me working through it on my own...

 

Thanks!

[thirdtimelucky 3]

John,

You can buy all the panels for not a lot of money but it is a fairly big job if you haven't done anything like it before, all the panels are spot welded in so you would need to drill out all the welds and weld in the new panels.

I would spend some time persuading the bent panels back into place, they are all fairly soft and should go back to there original shape. Obviously it wont be perfect but it will get him back on the road until he can save up for a body shop to do a proper job.

[wildejon 7]

Hi mate,

I don't think money is the problem really, just didn't want to spend out if I could do it myself, plus I know I would be thorough

Might just suggest he takes it to a shop, that or replace the shell, it is getting pretty rotten to be fair!