New fox body fan needs body shop advice.

[jaysend5.0]

Hello,

This is my first post here. I bought a 90 gt for my wife about 6 months ago and have been salivating at the chance to work on it. She says, step one is suspension. It has a hack job lowering on it right now and things rub. So I decided on the koni sport suspension kit with maximum motorsports castor camber plates and spring cups, or the maximum motorsports starter box. The car was in an accient and fixed in a hurry, so I wanted to get the frame all straightened out first before I tackle the suspension. I went to a body shop my wife reccomended and they quoted me $1200!!!
5.5 hours remove and install bumper
3 hours remove and install fenders
1.5 hours straightend and primer inner fender liner. (the metal that is tacked to the firewall and that the fenders bolt on to.)
9 hours frame rack set up and straightening.
@60 an hour.
Is this right. It took a shop less than an hour to straighten the frame on my truck. I was figuring a unibody would cost more but not 14 times more.

I went to every other shop in town and that one turned out to be the cheapest.
There was a guy working out of his garage that said if I took the fenders and bumper off and put them back on myself, he would do it for "about" $600.

Do you guys have any suggestions. I am tempted to sell it and start over with a straight one, but it has so many goodies on it. Plus bottom line, my wife loves this car.
Also as an aside what do you guys think of my suspension choices?

Thanks in advance,
Jason

 

[TheUser]

Well, if you have decent mechanical ability, which I assume you do if you're going to be doing the suspension yourself, you should be able to remove and install the fenders/bumper yourself. My car was wrecked as well and I fixed it - $300 for the shop to straighten the frame ($350) and they half-ass bolted the fenders back on, which was fine because that's what I asked them to do. I put 'em back on myself. I took the bumper cover off and put it on myself - it's very easy. Doing the fenders and bumper yourself saves 8 1/2 hours of labor @ $60/hr = $510 you'd save. Sounds like a lot of time on the frame rack, but I have no experience with that directly (not sure how long mine actually took), so I can't say for sure.

As an alternative, if you could find another car w/ a body you like, you could swap the parts out and sell the wrecked one w/ the parts you don't want.

Good Luck

 

[fox racer]

Remove the fenders and front bumper cover yourself, and thank me later. The bumper cover has about 18-20 bolts depending on year. six on each side that bolt to the fender, 4 that bolt it to the radiator support (and hold that air deflecter on under the car), 2-4 on the L bracket under the hood on the rad support, and a possible 2 more on the inside down near the headlight are (depending on year, 90+ dont use the ones near the headlight because different bracketry is used for air bag sensors). Once thats off its only 5 bolts per fender: 3 under the hood, one inside the door jamb, and one directly behind the front tire.
Its very easy to do and can be done in under an hour (i swapped front bumpers in 40 minutes and thats not even that impressive.) Good luck and hopefully all turns out well!

PS: nice choices ont he suspension stuff, MM is a tad expensive, but they are TOP quality.

 

[jaysend5.0]

Thanks so much for the replies. I thought a whole day for bumper and fenders was ridiculous.
$300 sounds alot more reasonable to straighen a frame.
I guess I will take all the stuff off and go to the guys garage. For $600 He better do a great job. I guess on a positive note I can take the bumper, fenders and hood in for paint while the frame is fixed.

Cheers