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After the horror of losing a front tire on my test drive, it's time to stopping crying and get the girl repaired. The details of what I know about the event are in another thread. This one is about fixing what happened. So, at 15-20MPH the drivers front tire came off. It went mostly out the opening, but caught the fender bending it up pretty badly, and causing some damage to where the fender met the cab. The tire then went under the running board it seems, and bent it up, forcing it upwards into the lower side of the cab under the door. The running board mount was pulled loose from what looks like a rivet on the bottom, mushrooming the metal. I need to get the running board mount off the truck to flatten the mushroom out, then reattach it. Right now it doesn't give me room the fix the bottom of the cab. I took some horror shots, but I had already started some of the repair. This is part of where the front fender bent the cab. I was able to pop most of it out from inside the foot well area. The previous owner snapped off the original mounting bolts and replaced them here. On the other side, he just left the broken off bolts in the cab. At some point, I'll drill them out with a Kobalt drill and see if I can retap. This is where I stared body work already. I watched quite a few pros on YouTube over the last week. It was pretty amazing seeing the dent disappear, but I'm not a pro. It was pretty deep and there was a crease up to the front edge. Off dolly tapping and patients. It isn't finished but my arms get tired easy and I didn't want to mess it up due to that. I'll take my time.

So I was having brake trouble on my 48 P15. I posted a thread on here and got a bunch of great suggestions but for whatever reason, I still could not get the brakes right. I finally decided to take it to a mechanic who knows old cars and had AAA tow it there.... Well on the way, the chain broke on the flat bed and the p15 crashed into the wall between the cab and the bed on the tow truck. It smashed the emblem, broke the bumper guards off and bent the bumper, bent the hood in, dented the grill and might have damaged the frame... Well the tow truck guy wants a local body shop he is familiar with to fix it who estimated the damage at 2k and I had a guy who specializes in old cars who happened to be next door to the mechanic shop and he estimated 6k. They both can't be right, right? A new grill, a new hood, new bumper(possibly), how much would that run? I want it done right but is 6k absurd? Can an ordinary body shop fix an old car?