Wrecked my Taco

So on July 1 I wrecked my taco driving home from San Antonio. I was going 75mph when the rear end lost traction and spun me around. I went off the highway backwards and hit a concrete filled steel pipe fence and got up on a drainage culvert. The front left wheel is has a pretty serious toe in and a good bit of positive camber. I had a local shop take a look at it and they are wanting to replace the lower control arm and ball joint and then see if it will align. The quote is pretty high so I am looking at doing it myself. What other culprits could be in there that I should be aware of?

 

A bent frame, broken steering rack, tie rods, hub assembly
Those are what I would look at before putting money into it

 

the steering knuckle is probably shot. and yeah, the steering rack and tie rods probably took a hit. steering rack may be ok if the tie rod collapsed.

cv axle may have gotten damaged too.

 

5 lug so no CVs

 

Lower control arms are meant to collapse to protect the frame. If the bolt comes out fairly easy, that part should be ok.

Sounds like you need new tires too, if not a different driving style?

 

that'll teach me to not look at the picture closely before i comment

 

Dang it man. Hope you are OK!​

 

Yeah, pretty much everything that moves on the front driver side is totally suspect at this point. I wouldn't trust the knuckle with that kind of impact, either.

Your rack might be okay, as long as it doesn't leak, and your tie rods collapsed instead of bending the rack...

 

Agree with knuckle- see if you can find an LKQ Knee Assembly which is the front suspension as an assembly- some companies (I believe Cowboys is one) will sell the assembly after rebuilding.

 

Local mechanic is selling a '11 taco 4.0 v6 4wd
Going to pick that up and part out the '01 Taco. Kinda want to keep the engine for some project down the road. Just don't know what that is yet. Any suggestions?

 

Find another 1st gen thats in nice shape with a broken motor. Use yours to bring it back and make some cash on the sale.

 

Neat idea Bill. I was leaning towards a high powered dune buggy build or something like that.

 

Keep what you have and make it into a street legal off road unit.

Stripped out accessories, flat bed, www.monstaliner.com finished inside and out. Rugged, minimilist, recovery capable.

 

Hmm, I'll have to look into that as well.

 

4cyl or v6?

4cyl you could build a tube chassis rock crawler, or may find a donor body with blown motor and build a crawler.

Or make the worlds largest gas powered blender... wait, damn, nevermind, the guys from Top Gear already made a v8 blender. Still tho....

 

Jesus Christ guys. He wrecks a 5 lug and you guys want him to build a crawler. Leave the poor man alone.

 

Keep the truck, rebuild the front and go full out long travel.

 

OP said he wanted to keep the motor to build a dune buggy with...

 

I guess so lol. Carry on then

 

Lol might aswell play around with it.
Just dont know how well a 2.4l 4 cyl rwd would do crawling. Probably going to be a storage area for a while. Put a tarp over the bed and use it to store spare parts for the 2011 I am buying. (live in apartments)