I wish I'd have taken pic's before I tore into this project... Will try to get some to show the original damage, and pick up where I'm at now.
Short story, I rearended a minivan (no brake lights) in my new to us '90 L wagon on the way to the paint shop after fixing the minor damage it had to the drivers front corner when I bought it. Wiped out the entire nose (lights, grill hood, core support, A/C condensor, and radiator). I got all the body parts to fix it again, and stripped it to see how bad the core support was....
It was bad, no fixing it this time, so out comes the drill, hammer, and chisel. Cut all the spot welds on the upper core support/headlight panel, around the bumper mounts, and down to the front crossmember. Got the old core support removed, straightened the inner fender panels back out, and pushed the front crossmember back into place (it was pulled up and back by the hood latch support). A few good whacks with a 3 lbs sledge and a 4x4 block put the crossmember right again.
Cut the core support/headlight panel off my spare snout (saved from a hard totaled sedan I parted out) and started fitting it up to the wagon. Tacked the fenders back on to check fit and hood to fender gaps. It was pretty close, but needed a little fine tuning, so fenders came back off and back to beating and banging.
Used every pair of vise grips, and c-clamps I own, plus a bunch of welders vise grips borrowed from my neighbor, and got it locked into place and ready to start spot welding back into place. Picking up a wire feed welder after work today and should have it fully welded back in tonight.
I'll post pic's late tonight and catch up to this point in the project.
The old core (on the donor stub)
More pic's below
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