Straightening an e30

[Karmageddon]

Sorry if this is the wrong place.



So I crashed my car the other day, speeding out of a corner, lost the rear end and it slid. I almost had the drift under control when it broke loose the other way and smashed into the guard rail. All on a race track, of course (Calabogie, if you must know).


The back end of my car is pretty smashed, also the driver door doesn't close properly.







People at the track were talking about straightening out the frame on a special machine, I'm wondering what you guys think. is it possible? or would bending it back to shape make it completely unsafe?

Also to note there is nothing more then surface rust on the car (yes, I am a monster for taking a "canadian" rust free e30 to a track for an advanced driving course, flame me after answering the question), and it still drives straight. I had to drive it 10km and it drove like it did before (minus the lack of exhaust and back window).

Ps I hadnt had time to remove my luke box from the trunk, and it is in perfect shape. The car stops being crumpled right around where the luke box is. It still sounded awesome in the paddock after the crash.



TL:DR I had a shitty week and crashed my newly roadworthy e30, 3 days after it was finally back to "like new". Can it be fixed?

[absolutdog]

That's pretty bad...and once straightened I hope you never get rear ended 'cause it won't be safe, the fact that the door doesn't close.... well that's REALLY bad makes me think the frame rails aren't straight at all

[Vivek]

I'm sure rust free means a lot more to you than it does to me, but something like that is really not worth fixing.

[absolutdog]

^^^
you're right, I used to live in FL and never had to look for rust, but up here near canukistan all I find is rusty e30's (I've bought 3 so far)

[///digitalme]

as far as i can see it wouldnt be worth fixing it..thats too much damage and would cost a lot, impacts travel all over the car your door could just be misaligned but getting it straight would be costly...

[Karmageddon]

I'm sure rust free means a lot more to you than it does to me, but something like that is really not worth fixing.

Surface rust on the bottom, to the point where everyone who has looked at it has asked if it came from florida.


But I will change it to "Canadian rust free" if that makes you feel better.

[Xat1cZ]

..get to work.

[nando]

That's pretty bad...and once straightened I hope you never get rear ended 'cause it won't be safe, the fact that the door doesn't close.... well that's REALLY bad makes me think the frame rails aren't straight at all

nonsense. you can safely re-clip a car and straighten the frame. not saying it's neccesarily worth doing, but it's definitely possible and if done properly isn't "dangerous".

[TobyB]

Yeah, clip was what I was thinking too.

But methinks that's coming close to the cost of a ticket to Cali and a decent,
truly rust- free car...

Tank slappers, they're called, and it happens to all of us... to some extent...

t

[ButtJuice]

Can't you just buy another e30 for the amount it would be to fix that? Just take off the parts you want to keep/make money on and scrap the rest. Then buy a new one!

[animal]

ya, finding another shell shouldn't be hard.. swapping everything over, well that depends on you LOL