Learn me: Pulling out "frame damage"

Before I got the $50 Saab it suffered a hit to the front that relocated the bumper bracket on the driver's side back an inch or so.

Enhance:

As you can see the mount is pushed back and the box section behind it is buckled. I would like to repair the area so that the bumper can mount properly, but with as little time and effort as necessary.

So far my thoughts are attach chain between old bracket and tree, and back up swiftly. I've also thought about just cutting off the old bracket and making a custom filler piece to locate a new bracket where it is supposed to be. The right answer probably lies in a combonation of these two approcahs, but minus the tree. I also need to make the headlight wiper motor mount in the correct spot (you can see it dangling in front of the bumper bracket. It mounts where the nuts are on the "shelf" behind the bracket.

Suggestions?

we did similar with my cousin's sentra that was pushed back a good 3". cable around bad area, other end around hitch on truck, stand on brakes in car so as not to destroy transmission park pawl, and yank a few times until it popped into place.

my father in law suggested he's seen old guys use 2 chains/cables, coupled to an old tire in the middle to ease the shock of the yank but still give the pull you need. i am going to try that with the wrecked buick to see if i can yank it back into place.

My old roommate backed into an old car of mine. We popped the bumper off and the bumper beam had been pushed back. We used a ratchet strap and the hitch of my truck. For that I'd use a come-along and a tree. Maybe tie the back of the car to a truck to hold it in place.

My neighbor does have a large diesel truck and a car with exactly the same damage. It seems like you would need the shock a straight chain provides, or would need to anchor it to something in the back. I'm not sure I'm wild about passing the loads through the whole car, but I'll check to see if there is a good place to hook onto on the back.

I had a similar issue with my CRX. First I used the tree, come-along, and wheel chocks method. The come-along would just drag the car. So I chained it to the tree and did the swift reverse method. It took a lot of yanks but I managed to pull it out about 90%.

Use a nylon tow strap with a choker, no metal hook. If it breaks, it will come sailing through a window and possibly at your head.

Have you thought about taking it to a bodyshop and getting it pulled out on their frame rack? It might be a more accurate method, just not as fun as doing it yourself.

In reply to hamster:

I don't want to spend more than the original purchase price of the car.

are you going to wait until you get ownership/title clarity before you proceed with anything?

I would probably put the strongest bolt I could fit through those holes and loop a jerk type tow strap through. Hook it to a very stationary object and back up with increasing amounts of force until I fixed it or broke something.
Sounds like a fun afternoon.

In reply to patgizz:

Before I do anything too expensive or time consuming, yes. But the Mrs. Would like the front bumper to go back on so it doesn't look so junky, and I might as well fix the support before I do that.

If it is just back and not out of place up and down, then just bolt on an extension to bring out the right distance and reassemble. it is a $50 car.

I would cut a piece of pipe to bolt in between the flanges of the bracket.

Attach your pull chain to the pipe.

Have a helper pull the chain (to a tree) tight and hold brakes firmly.

Put a support under the chain close to the car.

Then stand up on the chain and jump on it to pull.

This way you can control the pull and see what is happening.

You might use a hammer and dolly to work the sheet metal as you are pulling on it.

Don't try to move it all at once, a little bit at a time...

You could always just crash the other side in a controlled, symmetric fashion.

You need momentum. I secure the car to a tree and chain the damaged area to my backhoe bucket which I fill with gravel. A few gentle swings(or harder sometimes) pops it right out. Of course you need an excavator so there is that hurdle...

Who DOESN'T need an excavator?

My wife says I'll just dig holes in the yard, she doesn't understand that I can fill them back in too!

You could dick around with twenty Rube Goldberg attempts on a weekend, or you could pay someone who knows what they are doing and has the proper equipment $150 or so to straighten that out for you. The young and dumb me would have chosen the former; the much older and wiser me would do the latter. Of course, the older and wiser me would never have bought a Saab.

No mention of heating up the area in question before pulling.

Serious/honest question: wouldn't heat help with this fix?

In reply to ddavidv:

Valid point, but that's 3x his purchase price!

If you heat it the metal looses it's memory. If you pull it cold it will go back to where it was.

I stopped by the junkyard today with a battery powered sawzall and grabbed a new bumper support. The current plan is to cut off my old one leaving at least an inch of overlap and graft the new one on, and secure with plug welds on the overlap and seam welds on the outside edges.

In reply to bearmtnmartin:

That's not true with steel. When it deforms it strain hardens, and will be harder to bend back than an area that hasn't been bent.

Can't you use a hockey puck somehow, as a shim?

Got all the way to the end of the thread and no one mentioned using a tractor (excavator is close I guess). Welding a new one in sounds like the way to do it since it is a 50 dollar orphan.

Either that or a bunch of beers, a camera, and literally tens of dollars of youtube money.