About a month ago I had to go pickup a machine I bought and while cruising along on the interstate at about 75 mph [posted speed in that state] I had a front tire [new when I left home] blew up and just exploded, took a few milliseconds to tear the front fender, headlight assembly and part of the front bumper off the truck. The impact of it all blew the hood open, but since I was going fast enough, the wind blew it shut just before I drove over the hood, which is what I was actually expecting to happen next, but when it slammed shut, it destroyed the other headlight assembly and all the brackets holding it. Long story short, 1000 miles from home, no fender assembly on the left, tore the steps off the fuel tank, no headlights, the bumper was about touching the highway on the left side with nothing to pry it back into place and on a weekend with nobody and nothing open. The highway patrol were very helpful in directing traffic and there was no fine, they also gave me an inspection form stating the time and date of the incident and the extent of the damage [which came in handy two days later when the DOT got me] and also the tow truck driver that pulled me to an off ramp and changed the tire and rim for a spare I had along.
Well anyhow the whole problem now is parts, or shall I say lack there of available. I've found a few hoods, most they want more than the truck is worth and those reasonable enough are not worth taking home. Headlight assembly's are another issue, by the time this truck gets put back together its looking like about 10k in parts and labor and maybe next year sometime at the earliest to get it done.
Now its not a show truck by any means, all we use it for is to pull a lowboy, maybe 3000 miles a year unless we take it on a long distance trip like this one to go get something. All I need is a fender and headlights back on it, anyone have any ideas or suggestions as to how to go about fabricating something or finding some parts to put it back together again??
Basically between all the deer collisions and accidents and lack of being able to replace anything for new or newer vehicles of any sort, all the body shops turned it down flat, all were far to busy to even to get to it next year even, pretty much the same for all the machine shops in the area so its up to me to get this thing back on the road again.
Part of the left hood is torn completely off and gone, where it hooks with the strap to cab, nothing from there down is left, all that would need to be fabbed up somehow, the hood now hooks but is sprung enough it takes about three people to open and get it back closed again, the bumper needs to be thrown away which I haven't had time to do yet and all the brackets that hold the fender to the hood are gone, the spacer between the hood and fender is still there, but it tore the holes out as the fender went airborne. This is still the original hood made of aluminum, went to look at a few that were replacements made out of plastic, again in about as bad of shape as mine is now or maybe worse, so I ruled those out.
I wanted a machine shop to roll a piece of aluminum and literally build me a fender assembly, but after looking at it, it would take more time than they had available this summer and when done didn't want their name on it so to speak as for doing the work. They might consider building some headlight assembly's for it if I found all new headlights and just build the assembly's to fit whatever I found.
Certainly I can't be the only one to ever have this happen to, what have others done and I checked, insurance won't cover any of it, if I'd have hit a deer instead it would be covered 100 percent. Like I told the machine shops, no sense in doing a great job, a week later we'd end up doing just that and hit a deer or something to destroy it all again anyhow, but I guess appearance means everything to some, I'm more into functional myself, but to each his own.
Well anyhow the whole problem now is parts, or shall I say lack there of available. I've found a few hoods, most they want more than the truck is worth and those reasonable enough are not worth taking home. Headlight assembly's are another issue, by the time this truck gets put back together its looking like about 10k in parts and labor and maybe next year sometime at the earliest to get it done.
Now its not a show truck by any means, all we use it for is to pull a lowboy, maybe 3000 miles a year unless we take it on a long distance trip like this one to go get something. All I need is a fender and headlights back on it, anyone have any ideas or suggestions as to how to go about fabricating something or finding some parts to put it back together again??
Basically between all the deer collisions and accidents and lack of being able to replace anything for new or newer vehicles of any sort, all the body shops turned it down flat, all were far to busy to even to get to it next year even, pretty much the same for all the machine shops in the area so its up to me to get this thing back on the road again.
Part of the left hood is torn completely off and gone, where it hooks with the strap to cab, nothing from there down is left, all that would need to be fabbed up somehow, the hood now hooks but is sprung enough it takes about three people to open and get it back closed again, the bumper needs to be thrown away which I haven't had time to do yet and all the brackets that hold the fender to the hood are gone, the spacer between the hood and fender is still there, but it tore the holes out as the fender went airborne. This is still the original hood made of aluminum, went to look at a few that were replacements made out of plastic, again in about as bad of shape as mine is now or maybe worse, so I ruled those out.
I wanted a machine shop to roll a piece of aluminum and literally build me a fender assembly, but after looking at it, it would take more time than they had available this summer and when done didn't want their name on it so to speak as for doing the work. They might consider building some headlight assembly's for it if I found all new headlights and just build the assembly's to fit whatever I found.
Certainly I can't be the only one to ever have this happen to, what have others done and I checked, insurance won't cover any of it, if I'd have hit a deer instead it would be covered 100 percent. Like I told the machine shops, no sense in doing a great job, a week later we'd end up doing just that and hit a deer or something to destroy it all again anyhow, but I guess appearance means everything to some, I'm more into functional myself, but to each his own.
