Hello from Florida, Gen 2 Pre-Runner

Datura Dynamics · Nov 6, 2023

Hello everyone,

I've been the owner of my Tacoma for a few years now, but I recently decided to join the forum due to a fender bender. First and foremost, I'm happy to report that everyone involved is fine, and there were no injuries.

The damage from the accident was primarily on my driver's side, affecting the front quarter, front bumper, the core support, and the lower support bracket that braces the bumper and the front quarter. Fortunately, the frame of my Tacoma remained untouched, and there were no issues with misalignment. The collision occurred at a relatively low speed of around 7 mph.

Note how far back the headlight was pushed in.

A little background about myself: I am a prior enlisted Aerospace Hydraulics Craftsman from the United States Air Force, and I've had the opportunity to work on various aircraft, including C-130's, KC-135R's, and C-17's, all around the world.

Given my background and the fact that I would be performing all the repair work myself, I decided to use the collision as an excuse to upgrade some parts. I purchased a new bumper, a core support, the necessary brackets, a new fender, and a few other miscellaneous items. During the repair process, I also attempted to realign the core support by hand bending it back into place, since replacing it sounds godawful. While it's not perfect, I'm pleased to say that the alignment is good enough for my needs; and now I have a brand new core support that will sit on my shelf collecting dust since I no longer need it.

I don't care for the red accents, I'm getting black shackles and painting the trim pieces black as well. I still need to get the fender painted and reattach the flare. I'm waiting on delivery of the trim pieces that fill the gaps underneath the headlights; I got ones that have sequential turn signals and DRL included. I also got a snorkel to really broverland it up because of course I did. I'll be installing that hopefully tomorrow.

I should also note that I do a ton of CAD design when I get free time and I have some plans coming up for some mods I would like to do so expect to see that in the near future.

All in all the repair work on my Tacoma was really fun and I'm glad I dodged the bullet of replacing the core support. It was a very rare occurrence where all the work I did was just going smooth. I actually joined this forum before I started because I was dead sure that Murphy's law was about to ruin my life. I think I'll open up a build log and continue updates there. Glad to be here!