Rebuilding my Tacoma... Almost there

I was doing roughly 55 mph. Took it into a concrete barrier 3 feet or so high. I was trying to avoid a vehicle that came into my lane around a turn. I never made contact with the other vehicle.....I still don't know how I lost control exactly.....all of a sudden I was bouncing up and down hard and fast and before I knew it my backend was coming around I tried to hang on and straighten it out...when I was perpendicular to the yellow line I went fetal because knew I was going for a ride.

 

Day/night? That would not have had anything to do with how well the vehicle would have taken the damage.

 

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like at that speed into a solid concrete barrier a steel plate bumper wouldn't have helped much, or possibly might have made it worse due to not crumpling & absorbing energy as easily as the body panels etc. did.

Glad you came out more or less OK.

 

I appreciate it.... going to armor up the truck anyway during the repair. It will actually be cheaper....plus that will help in terms of hitting future softer things like maybe a deer, etc.

 

A full-coverage steel front bumper w/ hoops will go a long way towards mitigating deer strikes, possibly even elk/cow strikes from what I read. And quite a long ways against any average sedan or SUV built in the last ~15-20 years, i.e. with lots of fiberglass & styrofoam in their impact-protection systems.

Heavy rear bumper is also proven to protect the truck in at least some accident scenarios.

Of course the details of every accident are highly specific & ymmv. In particular, all the wheels are highly-exposed, pretty easy to damage (esp front.) and essentially impossible to protect from side or quartering strikes with armor/guards.

 

Yeah... I figured that part out.

 

So I figured I'd do some more documentation of the rebuild as I go along....1) Sonic people have questions they can ask. 2) So I can ask questions from others. 3) Because I'm learning a lot and sharing my experiences.

 

Had to move the kayak out of the way from the ceiling to open the hood higher. It was much easier, for whatever reason, to get the apron and fender rail out... likely because I had a bit more practice at that point.

My primer and paint will arrive this week. I'm going to go splurge on a handful of harbor freight clamps this week.

 

Well....after replacing 75% of the front end suspension and steering components. I have finally received and welded on new "inner sheet metal.

Different color, but I don't really care or intend to paint it as nobody is going to really see that stuff anyway.

It's been an interesting ride so far. Used a harbor freight titanium 140 welder for the job. Turns out learning to weld thin sheet metal is incredibly difficult. But then again what else was it supposed to do.

Used flux core 0.030 wire on the lowest settings possible. Basically did a crap ton of small little tack welds to fill in the plugs from when I drilled out the old metal.

After doing so you can still see that my hood and engine compartment don't line up exactly. This will be the one of two times I intend to use another shop to help me out. I'll have them give a tug in the corner of that frame to straighten out the mounting plates and to help line up the hood and engine bay box. Once that is done it should be pretty much bolt on after that with a new radiator, new ac condenser (although my old one held pressure fine) and headlights, grill, etc.

 

Nice job - it's always an adventure

 

It definitely has been...and honestly a bit stressful.... I'm usually gone for at least one week and a weekend out of every month, that coupled with trying to be a good dad (3 young kids) and knowing that I move in about six weeks I'm starting to feel the pressure. The good thing is once the frame shop gets done with their part, I should be able to bolt pretty much everything else on in a single weekend. Of course I need to replace the leaf springs as well, get an alignment and recharge my AC when this is all done (not trying to drive all the way across the country in the middle of July with no AC if I can help, if only for my dogs sake.)

 

More updates to follow.

 

Good Progress.

 

Ok so I finish welding in all the inner metal, I found a frame shop that was actually willing to tweak the bumper mounts on the frame for me (most are not even willing to look at your vehicle when you tell them you are DIY, they dont want their name associated with it and or they only seem to want to deal with Insurance companies.

Finally starting to bolt things back into the apron and right side inner fender.... definitely having to massage some brackets and what not, so far, everything I have bolted on except the windshield washer reservoir (aftermarket so im not 100% certain what the problem will be on that, but that isn't a huge deal)


I need HELP though....what is the below pictures item and where does it bolt up? I can't remember and based on the flow of the wiring harnesses it goes near the headlight I think....

 

So for those who might be wondering that is actually half of a shock bracket for an AC line. Apparently during the accident mine must have split in half on the rubber.

Three schools of thought:

1) replace the bracket...equals money
2) repair bracket... equals time
3) remove bracket...it doesn't appear to provide and real function?

 

Gonna go with out the bracket....I think....

In the meantime I fixed the air intake and mounted that to the fender, mounted the air intake system, rebent the bracket for the abs module and mounted that thing, mounted back the computer or control module that's by the abs module, mounted in the condenser, radiator, and fan clutch.

Also installed some of the brackets.

If you are still with me on this journey, thanks for your support!

 

So I have the fan, fan clutch, fan shroud, and some of the headlight and grill brackets installed.

I also put on the one headlight I could just to check for fitment. So far so good, but that is of course the side that didn't get hit so no huge surprise.... waiting on the correct antenna to arrive before I can get the new fender on and this the other headlight.

 

Update:

For seam sealer I went with this stuff. I picked it up at O'Reilly's. Definitely could have gotten it cheaper online I imagine, but was trying to get the seams and spot/tack welds covered today.

It spreads nice and thick, very workable. Definitely glad I went with this over something from Home Depot. Highly recommended.

 

So the leaf springs and shocks have now been replaced....just need to bounce it and torque it all down.

In the meantime I am having a really hard time getting this hood to line up....it's ever so slightly to close to the fender on the side I got hit (by the grill) and ever so slightly to wide on the driver's side (by the grill). Gaps up near the windshield are pretty good.

I have tried loosening the four bolts that hold the hood to the hinges to tweak it a little bit that way but I don't know if it will give me enough adjustment.

Any tips or tricks would be appreciated!

 

So....found out that on both the bolts from the hinge to the hood....and from the hinge to the rest of the truck, all have a shoulder that automatically center the bolt. So in essence, the only real way to adjust the hood, is to replace these bolts with regular bolts from a hardware store that don't have a centering shoulder and some washers to go with them. This allows you to get some play with the hinges and adjust more.

Heading to home Depot tomorrow to get more bolts.