So long story short my girlfriends brother stole and wrecked the S while house-sitting during a recent vacation. This happened earlier in the year when I still had winter insurance on it and bald tires from the year before. I had drove it a couple times so at least it was not the first run of the year. Since there is only 60K miles on it and I had been contemplating selling it, I decided to let her sit this year out.



The front bumper was toast and the radiator mount is pretty banged up. I am planning to remove the radiator so I can better see the damage. If anyone knows of a radiator swap DIY that would be helpful. Search didn't really do much for me.

The radiator mount looks pretty sturdy. I'm not sure if I will be able to get it back in place myself. I'm wondering if a shop might be better equipped to tackle this gracefully.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

Doesnt look terrible, but Charge that mofo!!

 

Yeah that's definitely fixable and a frame/body shop can do it no problems.

I hope you're making him pay for it!!

 

I have similar damage, I will be drilling the spot welds (10 per side approx) and replacing with new OEM pieces, they cost $150-$200 for the whole radiator cradle. It comes in 4 pieces, I will temporaliy bolt it in and hopefully be able to weld it in later. FYI I have put approximately 10k miles on it like that with no issues lol.

 

Looks like more than just a bent radiator bracket to me. The right sub frame tube is almost 2inches higher than the left. Looks like the whole front is twisted. /shrug

 

That might just be the camera angle. Hard to tell from the pic.

 

I just put a tape to them and they both measure 14.25" from the ground. It must be the camera angle.

 

Where did you find the cradle? I will probably try the drill and bolt method first before getting the piece re-welded. I drove my car once but the hood won't close all the way because the hood latch is connected to the radiator cradle.

 

I found an exploded diagram on hondapartsnow.com.



I am not sure what I am looking at. On another thread, the person had to replace both 22 and 28, which is over $1100! I don't believe I will need all those pieces, just that front cross member that the hood latch (#10 - stay) bolts to. I'm hoping it's 11, 26 or 27. I suppose I need to pull the radiator before deciding which pieces I need to replace.

 

You need #'s 3,5,10,11. That picture is misleading #3 and 5 are about 11 inches tall, they are the "posts" that are bent on your car currently, the hold #11.

The reason your hood won't close is because the #10 is twisting #9 causing too much clearance. As a temporary fix I cut #9 in half and used aluminum stock from ACE hardware about 1/8" thick to realign and bolt it up, has been holding tight for 10k miles as well.

Also you will notice that the lower "crossmember" is nowhere near as structural as it appears and I would highly doubt it could pull the frame out of alignment as the upper crossmember and bumper beam seem much stronger and are about 5x heavier. The radiator cradle weighs about 4 lbs total.