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wife's fender bender 200 1989

My wife (who is agonizingly, slowly learning a lesson about proper following distance), get in a minor fender bender. She rear ended some car in heavy traffic, not too fast thankfully. There was hardly any damage to the car, and luckily the other guy is being totally cool about not needing any repairs. There were a couple scratches that I'm sure a body shop would charge hundreds of dollars to repair, so we're getting off easy on that one.

Our brick, however, is slightly worse for the wear. Although it could have been much, much worse. Thankfully there is no damage to any of the sheet metal, and the alignment doesn't seem to have been affected. The front bumper seems to have been knocked in a little, so that the grill is cracked on one side, which is not a problem. The concern is that the front end got crunched ever so slightly so that now the hood doesn't shut all of the way. It is fitting loose, and doesn't go down to the second click. The hood seems OK to drive for now without a danger of blowing up at highway speeds. I tried to yank it up with a lot of force and it doesn't seem to be in danger of coming loose. But I know it's not a permanent situation. This needs to be fixed before we take it out of town.

I have very little experience with body repairs. Is this a job that I can do somehow myself, adjusting the front bumper in some way? Or is this a job for a shop, that hopefully will not charge me too much?








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Maybe a quick interim fix 200 1989

The receiver side of the hood latch can be adjusted, and the extension of the latch finger itself can be changed--it's got a screw thread that you turn against the spring. You may be able to reposition one or both so the hood closes without having to replace any of the body members. (Is the hood straight?)

If you try this, do it without a grille in place, so you can get to the mechanism from below in case the hood latches and doesn't want to release.

You don't want to be driving on the highway with the hood flopping against the safety catch. If it flopped enough it might break that catch and then you would get quite a surprise.

Good luck.

Doug Harvey








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wife's fender bender 200 1989

Fix that hood. I have a hood from a blue 89 245 in my garage that popped on the highway because the safety catch didn't hold it. Don't trust it even if it feels secure.
Figure out what's bent, and adjust the latch till it works right.
The bumper stops on the front corners can screw in and out to get height right. The center pin of the latch screws in and out with a locknut securing it. The latch assembly can move around in the radiator top plate, and the latch can move on the hood. There's a lot of adjustment available.
My friend got off lucky- we found her a closely matching hood, with hinges for only $100. The hinges break when this happens, and if you're going fast enough, it'll bang into the top of the roof, and possibly break the windshield.

Fix it to avoid a nasty surprise. Good luck!
--
Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: '87 244DL/M47- 234K, '82 245T/M46-182K, '89 244DL/AW70- 212K Not too distant past: 86 244DL 215K, 87 244DL 239K, 88 744GLE 233K, 88 244GL 147K, 91 244 183K








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wife's fender bender 200 1989

not too much of a problem - i had a nasty one a few months back and it bent my hood to about a 15º angle in the middle at one of the crunch zone creases

you should be able to reach up to the hood release from under and behind the spoiler to release the hood if it is stuck

remove the grille

take a close look at the header panel (joins left and right upper front of fenders)from side to side front to back and see if it looks misaligned or bent, look at theheader panel upper mounting bolt areas at the fender and see if they look like they have shifted from their original location, check the radiator mount brackets for looseness

where the hood catch area is located could be bent a little bit as well

check the hood release cable where it goes into the hood catch assembly and ensure that it operates freely, the catch assembly is a pretty simple mechanism that you can easily diagnose and bend back to a working shape

then slowly bring to hood down until the pin is about to make contact with the catch assembly and ensure there is proper alignment, the catch assembly can be loosened from the header panel and shifted around to make a proper contact

the catch pin with spring can be adjusted for a shorter or longer pin - to short and it wont catch completely, too loose and the hood gets wobbly in the front at high speeds

you can repair a missing mount pin on the lower grill by screwing a bolt up into the broken off spot and then cut off the bolt head

good luck

--
big rich in arkansas '62 544 132K, 85 244 210K, 95 855 105K








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wife's fender bender 200 1989


Well the bumpers on Volvos have built in shock absorbers. Your front ones probably need to be replaced. My '86 240 wagon has been lightly rear ended on one side and that was enough to push that side's absorber in slightly. As for the hood, it has a safety catch. The hood closing panel can be unbolted if I remember correctly. Maybe if the mounts for this aren't bad, you could find a straight panel from a parts car. This panel was made to unbolt to faciliate removal of the engine. Is the hood damaged at all? It all really depends on what is misaligned. If there's a lot out of alignment, your best bet would be to find a body shop that specializes in foreign cars, not American ones.

Good luck.
Dave







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