My fun Saturday

When I started my day, this is what my car looked like. It still had it's smashed-in face, half-smile look. I finally got the tools together that I thought I would need to fix my car and make it look normal again. haha.

First thing I did was remove the bumper cover. I believe that took about an hour. After removing my bumper twice, and a couple other storm bumpers, I should have had this off in 30min. I ran into a little problem pulling it off the passenger side. The reinforcement where there was the most damage had bent up into the headlights making it almost impossible to pull the cover off.

So, with the bumper off, I started making my plan on how to fix my car. I realized that nothing was going to happen with the passenger side headlights still bolted to the frame. I removed those and pulled out my come along. after pulling out the come along, I realized that the wire was too short to wrap around the tree. So, off to the hardware store again to buy a chain.

With the chain, I was finally able to start working on my car. The first place I tried was the reinforcement. That didn't seem to go too well and I figured that I might need more tools. I knew too that I would not be able to put the old cover back on. I decided to try and pull out the frond end as much as possible. The pic on the right shows the come along attached to the top of frame. I was able to pull the frame out enough to get the hood closed. Talk about work that is a pita. I know it's going to be worth it when I'm done, I just wish that it wasn't so insanely tuff. It's easy to get discouraged when you're working on your own car, I guess. Anyway, after pulling on the top of the frame for a while, I thought I would try on the reinforcement again. As I was ratcheting it, the handle bent almost completely around. I guess I don't know my own strength. I didn't think that I could max out the limit on the come along. The weight limit on come along was 1500 lbs, and I figured that since my car only weighs like 2200 lbs, I should not go over the limit. Was I wrong. Luckily, the hardware company gave me a replacement. I think I'm going to take that back and get a come along with a higher weight limit.

Driving with my bumper off is an adventure. As I was heading to work today, it felt as if I was fighting the wind the whole day. Not fun at all. I can't wait to finish my car. Below is a pic of the broken come along and a pic of what my car looks like now.