Truck Vs Mail box

I salvaged the headlight and bumper, but probably $200 in new brackets and hangers.

I chose to cut the core support out, and weld a tube structure instead.
Normally it would be pulled straight by a frame straightening machine.
No idea what that would cost.

 

If your left front tire didnt impact anything but your alignment is off, then thats a good sign that your frame is bent.

 

If you have insurance, use it...

 

Nothing is going to fit right if you just start ripping shit apart and replacing tie bars, supports, ect without taking measurements.
You have insurance get a shop to fix it right.

 

Glad to hear you are ok. Good luck with the insurance.

Old mailbox story:
Way back when I was a little one, someone used to destroy our mailbox on a monthly basis. My dad got tired of it and bought some thick pipe my mom told me was for sewage drains for a house. It was taller than he as so I am guessing maybe 8ft section(?). He dug a hole, filled it with concrete, and then inserted the pipe and then filled the pipe with concrete & mounted the mailbox. Very proud he was. A few weeks later we heard a huge bang out side and my dad woke up and looked out and opened the door to see what it was. The darn neighbors kid (19yrs old) was sitting on the side of the road all bloody and completely confised what had happened, with his van completely demolished wrapped around the pipe/mailbox(headlights facing one another). It was the neighbors wrecking our mailbox every month and they would watch my dad go out and replace it, then smash it again.

Never had a problem with the mailbox again.

 

Use your insurance, that's what it's for. This is the result of a solid brick mailbox vs. the cheap ass OEM front end of a Tacoma. Only an aftermarket bumper would've prevented the damage.

 

Dang

 

Damn! I was expecting to see small damage from title. So sorry

 

Well boys update time. Went and got the insurance claim going and the shop estimate is about 7k which was pretty close to what I guessed thanks to your guy's experiences. I'll keep you guys updated on what happens but it looks like she'll be back and pretty soon. I think the steering problem is due to me slamming that curb with my tire pretty hard but we will just have to wait and see once they get her completely pulled apart. I am once again not going with a steel bumper and I'll explain why. I had a buddy hit me in the parking lot during high school and I originally considering going with a nice steel one but the owner of my trusted body shop rightfully pointed out bumpers are supposed to absorb impacts and crumble and that is exactly what mine did. Old steel cars could handle little "fender benders" better than new cars but they also killed people in serious accidents because they didn't absorb impacts as well. My truck did its job and broke where it was supposed to break and didn't where it shouldn't. Kept me from getting injured and if i had a big ass steel bumper I definitely could've bent my frame. You can absolutely do whatever you want to your trucks but I hope you keep that in mind before you shell out the money.

 

Or transferred all the energy absorbed by the crumpling front end directly into the frame and bent the front frame extensions down.

 

See my post i made seconds before you did. Great minds think a like

 

Dude, are you sure you didn’t hit the post office!??

 

that would've made for a better story

 

Truck went into the shop on the 28th and they are looking at 11 days assuming they don't have to go back to insurance for anything else but we will see

 

I bought a wrecked 1st gen Tacoma. I went to a friend's large yard and chained the truck to a tree (it was on the side of a hill), put it in reverse, and used hammers and dollies to straighten the core support out. It worked really well. Everything but two grill clips fit perfectly. To initiate the straightening I did a couple of yanks using the gas pedal with the tree/chain setup (lol). Unless you've worked with hammers and dollies before I wouldn't recommend trying it, things could easily get worse.

 

2012+ ARBs are slightly different than 2005-2011 due to the face lift. For those models you cut and re-install the top few inches of the plastic bumper to fill the gap

 

Was the name on the mailbox Kesterman?

 

No it was a family friend

unless im just completely missing the joke and in which case r/wooosh

 

The joke was in the cartoon "Crankshaft" Ed is always backing over Kesterman's mail box with his school bus.

On a more somber note, sorry about the damage.

 

That was definitely before my time but i hope someone else gets it the first time because thats pretty good