body - frame misalignment.. your thoughts (pics inside)

Okay so I already know that the previous owner of my tacoma drove the truck into something on the front passenger corner. The chrome part of the bumper shows minor scrapes and the entire bumper is pushed into the truck ~1" on the passenger side.

So I take off the bumper in an attempt to see what kind of bracket damage occurred underneath. As soon as the bumper came off, I realized the gap between body and frame is a bit narrower on the driver side, as you can see in the pic below, the rubber bushing shows more on the passenger side. If you look closely, you can also see a height difference of the lower grill opening.

Is this normal? Within manufacturing tolerance? If not, what kind of impact would cause this kind of damage?

 

I wouldn't worry about it. It probably happened in the wreck or is normal.

 

Two questions:

1) Does the vehicle pass a wheel alignment?

2) Can you get the body panels to align?

If the answer is yes to both, then don't sweat the small stuff.

 

Look at hood and fender,door alignment, if the frame is pushed back the bumper won't line up as it should. Look under the truck on the hit side see if there is any crinkled paint on the frame rails, there has to be bumper bracket damage, which may be able to straighten with a little bit of heat and BFH.

Why half ass the repair you have the bumper off take it to a frame shop and have them pull it forward. Having done frame straighting for a living thats looks to be an easy pull. Then everything will align as it should. My $0.02

 

I can see that the bracket attaching the bumper to the frame is bent. I tried to remove it but the nut securing it to the bumper is rusted on. I figured not to force the issue since snapping that bolt would result in the need to purchase a new bumper for ~$200 which is a $hitty deal since I can get ab ARB bull bar for $700 more.

The bumper is pushed into the truck on the corner of the passenger side. There isn't any obvious alignment problems between the body panels and I'm pretty sure all the panels are original due to the visible 7 years of rust.