My First Fender Bender

so yesterday morning, my poor taco took a hit, or more or less I ran into someone while dealing with lovely baltimore rush hour traffic. My front bumper has words imprinted in it from the guys wiring harness and the clips that hold the grill snapped off of the one side and also the top plastic bracket that holds the head light on snapped through too... It was clash of the tacos since I hit a 96 tacoma, I think mine was worse for wear just because of his hitch... Now I guess I have an excuse to upgrade the grill and headlights

 

Sorry to hear it. I'm getting the ARB bumper just for that reason. Help protect the truck! Good luck.

 

the ARB bumper is awesome, i was planning on picking one up next year right after i lift the truck and roll the fenders out haha, going after the whole desert racer/trophy truck thing...my exhaust already sounds like one so i'm part of the way there.

sorry to hear about the taco battle bro, i had a fight with my headlight and the oven and my headlight and i lost that one, bought an oem one on ebay for 90 bucks shipped and then completed the black headlight mod, and i couldnt be any happier than i am now...my truck looks damn fine, and it cost me a can of spraypaint, plus the headlight i screwed up because i didnt know u had to turn the oven off before u put them in haha

 

I feel your pain.... my truck had 3,000 miles on it and it got rear-ended.

Gawd..so much for trying to keep it 'prestine'.

 

prestine isnt something any vehicle i've owned is, with the exception of my cobra and my R6...the taco is a work truck so it's always full of garbage inside and has a ladder hanging out the back, which messed up my bedliner a bit

 

Yea turd taco, I read about yout mishap before... I was thinking of trying the mod myself, Its kinda good to learn from others mistakes I guess. But now the front of your truck looks bad ass with the lights like that, it really turned out good... I was thinking of doing it to mine but wasn't sure how it would look on the speedway blue color with the chrome in the grill, I wasn't sure if the black would just look dumb or not... Do you still have the messed up head light or not.. I need the plastic housing that connects the truck to the light, do they come in seperate parts or what???

 

the black headlights look GREAT on speedway blue, even with the chrome grille. i am having my chrome grille painted super white to match the truck, like how the trd sport packages have them color matched. and yes, i still have the entire headlight i messed up. the lense is melted, but the housing and the chrome piece inside is fine. what do you need it for?

 

Ill take a pic and show you the damage so you can tell me if it would work or not... The right head light brackets got messed up, its like the tannish color plastic, like where the grill snaps down in to

 

Sorry about your fender bender. Good luck with it all!

 

Damage to headlight Housing

what it should look like

piece is broken off completely where grill goes in

and this is bent too, this is the center of the grill


Ignore the zip ties in the pics... I had to do some rigging

 

Same kinda thing happened to a couple of years ago except i t-boned a bonehead @ 25mph. Thank God for insurance 8K in damages to my Taco. But a word of advice DO NOT install a generic grill, mine is and the paint has started to peel off so it looks like s#!t. If I can ever figure out how to upload pics i'll show ya.

 

yea i have that piece in perfect shape still. that'd actually be good of you to let me send this to you, that way you can get the bhlm done and you'll save money on buying another light. i have the back housing and the chrome piece inside that are perfect, my lense was all that melted. if your lense is fine i'll send u the headlight pieces

 

yea man, eveything is fine and intact except the housing part, does it just come apart or what???

 

Damn, 8 grand.. I hope I didn't do that much damage...

 

When i came home that morning the wife asked what i was doing home so early told her was in a wreck and she went to look at the truck and didn't notice any damage! But end up with newbumper and all the mounting brackets, grill, radiator, condensor, fan assm. and a new fender some other things i cant think of. It turned out to be alot worse than what i thought. The best was the tow fee something like $300 to my house 6 miles! And another $250 to the shop. Like i said thank God for insurance and luckly the guy was insured (it was his fault)

 

mine is still completely drivable, so I dont think it will need that much.. I'm thinking a new bumper and grill should cover it.. plus the whole headlight thing

 

the headlight housing separates from the lense with the help of the oven, and the chrome piece inside is clipped onto the back side of the lense so when u pull the housing and lense apart, the chrome part goes with the lense until u detach it. need the housing and chrome piece? just let me know if u want it, or send me your other headlight too and i'll do the bhlm for ya lol, u just cant drive at night for a few days

 

I work 3rd shift so I always drive at night... All I need is the housing part... I just got my estimate from the insurance guy and they came up with about 1400... Which sucks.. but any little bit would help.. How much would you want for that housing part... and also, is it the chrome piece you paint.. and one more thing, did you have any problems re aligning your headlights after doing the mod???

 

the chrome piece is the only piece you'll paint, unless u tint the turn signal bulb lense like i did before u put it back together. unfortunately it looks like my buddy tossed the housing into the trash yesterday but you can get an entire oem headlight used on ebay for 90 bucks, thats where i got mine. and as far as realigning them after installation, i didnt even have to adjust them! i just bolted them back on and they were perfect, even the passenger side one i got off of ebay

 

When you did the blacking out mod, would you say the brightness of your lights went down since your painting over the shiny/reflective parts???