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Thanks for the offer Marc. I'll have to look at my spares to see if I have one of those "D" covers.

Did some minor cleaning and disassembly and have discovered another issue. It looks like the front impact was harder than previously thought. I tried to capture the damage in the pics. I suspect the chassis rails are slightly bent because the top deck is significantly bowed. Note the center brace is pulled upward from the rails about 1/8 inch. I imagine the top deck will spring back into shape but I'm not sure what other damage I'll discover.

Wow, with all the parts cars I've seen over the years, I've yet to see one with bent chassis rails. I have a feeling that the bowed-up top deck is because the bottom of the W-shaped chainguide separator popped out from the lower chainguide. The W is supposed to snap onto the lower chainguide and it's a pain to pop in when you're building the car. Is the W just resting on top of the chainguide or is the chainguide running *through* the bottom of the W as it's supposed to? It looks from the pic like it's just resting on top of the guide.

I should mention the longitudinal orientation of the gearbox sideplates & the frame rails makes those parts of the chassis *extremely* sturdy. You almost never see those items bent.

EDIT: This image should help (adding a link not the full page image):

http://www.retromodelisme.com/img/manuel/kyosho/turbo_optima/P_page_017.jpg

Ah, yes, it turns out you were correct. The W was resting on top of the rails. The top deck snapped back into shape immediately upon removing the front screws. The rails do not appear bent at this stage, what a relief! So, with that, I think this can be a very nice car. Under the grime it's definely lower usage, and the shock towers appear straight as well. The shocks themselves seem to show almost no wear either. This is definitely a much better car than the last Optima I restored.

That's good to hear, about the shock towers. As I said, the longitudinal design of the rails & sideplates makes those parts of the car very strong. The things going cross-wise, such as the shock towers--are weak points, not surprisingly.