Land Rover Discovery v's Oak tree

Discovery 1 accident.

Earlier this week when coming home from a meal my girl friend drove my car back to my house.  I had been drinking so changed roles for the night.

Unfortunately, she was in two minds as to which turning to take and decided to go right quite late on towards a corner.  At which point Larry headed exactly between the two options of left and right, sliding on gravel into a rather large Oak tree at about 15-25 mph (its hard to tell exactly what speed we were going as we were all writing letters home, you know the sort "Dear Mamma etc etc"). 


After the crash we decided we were all ok, even the American in the back who was shouting "Yeeeee Haaaaaaa" and my GF daughter who realised she was not actually dead.

The only injury was in fact my left shin which cracked in the dash breaking the glove compartment cover.

This is a picture of the damage.

Angle on view front end damage

View from the font.

So as you can see, the damage looks quite severe.  However, I decided this weekend to strip down the front end to see what the actual damage is.

Chassis rails ok and straight

Internal parts pushed backwards but all intact

Dented wing and bent front bash plate and radiator mounting

Kaboom, me pulling the wing off, you can see the new shape bonnet

Eyeball pointing at the ground

Quite rust free under the wing, note the sealant goo

All stripped ready for a welder quite

The steering guard did its job

Now 2 hours after starting I had striped down most of the front end to reveal that the chassis is OK.  All the fluids, radiator, inter-cooler and mechanics OK.

Just about all of the damage to Larry is the nearside wing and front panel, oh and the serpentine belt which was knocked off the pulley's by the outer radiator cowl.  This cased the poeer steering to stop working, fortunately I stopped Larry immediately and got him brought home by trailer.  Therefore the engine is ok, everything was just shifted back a bit.

Parts required for the fix;

1. Inner wing off side  (needs welding)
2. Bonnet
3. Off side wing
4. Front bash plates
5. Front chassis mounting bolt
6.  Glove compartment cover
7. Bonnet hinge
8. Serpentine belt
9. Several hours of effort

So, what next. Donor vehicle here we come :-)