Troy,
It's difficult to speculate about the extent of damage to your
car without seeing it (angle of collision etc.), but in general:
The later US Spits with square rear bumpers ('75 on) should
survive a rear end hit better. The extra hardware these cars
had made them stronger, and also implemented an early version
of today's "crumple zones". The large rear rubber tits should
be considered sacrificial. They should be replaced if they were
impacted even slightly. They can be damaged internally and
still look OK. BTW they are not cheap. These taken together
with their brackets and the "frame extensions" that support
them all work together to provide impact absorption.
There have been several comments already on the possible
condition of these "frame extensions". I'm not sure everyone
is talking about the same thing. There are the box sections
welded at the rear frame crossmember, that earlier cars didn't
have (painted body/frame colour). Also there are the
"inverted U shaped" extensions (painted black) that are bolted
on to the rear box sections. These are telescopic wrt the
car frame, providing additional absorption. They are
"one-shot" however, and disassembly might be required to
ascertain their position. All of these parts should sacrifice
themselves before significant damage to the body tub/frame
occurs in a straight-on rear impact at bumper height. A Dodge
truck might impart additional (above bumper height) damage.
If the specified wheel alignment cannot be achieved, the frame
should be checked for twist and squareness. The procedure and
specifications for this is in the Bentley manual.
Another tuppence worth perhaps.
--
Bob (& '78 Spitfires)
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/s1500
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