Well once again there's good news and bad news. The insurance company decided they would pay for the repairs to the quarter panel (At least part of it) They sent their own appraiser and he approved $550 for the repair. That's certainly better than nothing but I doubt that it will cover all the repairs.
The bad news is that I can't drive the car over to get it repaired until I fix this oil pump gear problem.

Merry Christmas,
Rick

Just wanted to let you know that we just got back from picking up my sons Dart at the body shop. The Insurance company paid for the entire repair to the Quarter panel (less a $50 deductible) This was after all 5 wheel studs sheared off about 3 months ago and destroyed the left side of a new Quarter panel. It looks as good as new.
Who'd ever thunk it!!!

Rick

I worked as a tire man at a service station for a little over 5 years, and only saw the studs shear off on a wheel once. Even after i gave the customer my customary 5 minute speech on how important it was to come back to have the lugs re-torqued, only about half of them came back after 50-100 miles. The guy that came back with the sheared studs didnt come back for a re-torque

Ive had several lugs make 1 to almost 2 complete turns to be re-torqued to the proper spec after being driven for 100 miles...im betting this was a contributing factor to your failure, though it may just have been tired studs.

I always re-torque my own lugs twice, once after 100 miles and again after another 100. The first time most every lug has lost at least 20 ft-lb, the second time they are either fine or up to about 5 ft-lb off.

Just my .02, but re-torque those lugs after 100 miles!!

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The "Silver Bullet"
87 Ram D150

Cool! Glad it worked out for you guys Rick.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.