Cracked sheet metal above radiator body bushings

I'm going to keep this brief.

I cut my bumper off a month ago as I am getting ready to put an offroad bumper on. When I did so there were several tears/cracks in the sheet metal. I had them 'fixed' and painted over them. Two weeks after that I went to Moab they returned and are in full force.

Take a look under your hood, who is seeing this in their truck? Are you lifted or not?

I know 3 trucks with this issue now, one on stock everything but wheels hard, myself and Micah who are lifted and wheel hard.

 

refresh, i had to add from my phone, sorry

 

I've had a front end clunk since new and I was looking around under the truck the other day and saw this. Not as bad as yours but similar. Interested in seeing if any one else has this issue.

 

If you go fast over rough terrain and haven't extensively reinforced your front end then your truck looks like this. The 2nd and 3rd gen have the same bones and they aren't built for abuse.

Stop drills slow the issue but no real fix beyond reinforcing all the things.

 

Is this why anything badged “land-cruiser” costs upwards of $80K?

 

Makes me want to trade my Tacoma for a mini van. And that is no shit.

Hate to see this on your truck Drew.

 

That's pretty disappointing to see. Has anyone you know reached out to Toyota about this?

 

There's a longer thread about this somewhere. Think it's called 'check your radiator support for cracks'

Common issue on all gens of Tacomas if you wheel hard. Only permanent solution is to cut it all off and fabricate a new core support. I've done it myself and it's a PITA.

 

What would you tell them? "My truck cracked when I beat the dogshit out of it on dirt roads. Warranty please."

 

Toyota won’t care unless stock trucks driven on the road start having this problem.

 

I should be O.K. then. I was starting to worry.

 

That is nothing new at all. The 2G trucks have a weak sheet metal radiator support as well and they always crack in the same area of the bulkhead. You can thank Toyota for makign the core support soda can thin.

You have unfortunately not only exacerbated the problem, but have also weakened the core support by welding on it.

My advice to alleviate some of the cracking and slow it down is to relocate the battery. That is the prime issue for all of the cracking and also get polyurethane core support bushings made by Energy as the OE ones are absolute garbage and are prime contributors to the issue as well since they allow slop between the frame and the core support metal.

Energy PN:

$34 9.4101G UNIVERSAL MOUNT

9.4101G

 

Well the pro is doing that in the television so what's wrong here?

 

now I gotta go look.

 

Maybe the TRD OR should stand for TRD On Road .

 

I’m not looking.

 

Plenty of threads here of people doing what they do in commercials and getting denied warranty claims. 2nd gen commercials had them getting thrown off cliffs and hit by meteors, don't think that's covered.

 

Toyota still using sub par metal under these trucks , what a bunch of bull shit .

 

It’s how they keep ‘em cheap. If you want quality, spend the extra $10k and buy Ford. “Quality is job 1” over there.