VEHICLES > DAILY DRIVERS/GROCERY GETTERS
Toyota Highlander crash rebuild
goodfellow:
This was a rebuild I did after my daughter got caught up in a pile-up on I-95S
The car was in sad shape when it arrived on the rollback. It's 12 years old and we stopped carrying collision on that car after it turned 10 years and only carry liability. I was tempted to scrap it out, but I really like this model year and decided to tow the damn thing back home and start the rebuild process. What the heck -- I have tools, welding equipment, and and some time over the next month, so I will rebuild it.
This is how it arrived off the flatbed this morning -- the entire front sheetmetal and fenders were off.
I started to strip it -- and pretty much the entire core support and ancillary pieces (radiator, condenser, lights, bumper supports), were trash.
Only thing that was intact was the "iddy-biddy" horn -- :))
Stripping a tangled mess -- what joy!!
Headlights are toast --
The biggest issue is the reinforced frame bumper mount -- it's totally crushed. I'll have to cut this out and replace it with a new fabricated frame mount.
Radiator is toast, but surprisingly the fans are in good shape and can be reused.
Even the plastic washer bottle was spared. Which is also a surprise since it sits way in front, and right behind the bumper mount.
The core support need to have the spotwelds cut and be totally removed. My job for tomorrow is to cut all those spotwelds and remove the crushed support
Finally, at the end of the afternoon I got around to placing an order for about $1000 in new parts. I plan of replacing the parts and giving this old Highlander a new lease on life. Including this little fiasco, over the past seven years I've pretty much touched every body panel on this car with some sort of bodywork.
goodfellow:
Second day was a hard day - spent most of it cutting spotwelds to get the crashed core support out, and to straighten some associated mounting points. The good news is that the headlight mounts are in great shape -- a little tweak here and there and they were straight.
The big job was removing all the tangled core support pieces. There were spot welds everywhere --
I also had to keep track of the wiring loom and associated control module mounts -- there are a lot of them.
I started with the top left mounts and worked my way down and across to the other side -- centerpunching, spot drilling, and then finally weld drilling.
Tedious, but I got good results --
The bottom support was fairly easy because it was flat and easy to access -
Lots of dropped fasteners and hardware in that cavity -- when I finally open it up, there must have been a dozen screws and bolts trapped in there. I know they didn't come from me, so I assume that was done at the factory.
Finally I made my way back up the right side and called it a day
Completely removed core support and after I straightened a few flanges, I feel pretty good about it.
Tomorrow will be the critical day though because I will have to cut off the passenger side bumper mount in order to straighten it. That thing is crushed like and accordion. Time for some plasma cutting work --
Onward --
goodfellow:
I was able to get a clean cut on that bumper support and rescue the bumper mount. I had to cut the support base that the core mounts on in order to separate the mangled bumper mount.
Then I made a cut on a good straight section of the boxed frame to get the crushed pieces free.
Here is the mount and the mangled mess. This mount took a good hit, but I was able to free the important mounting section and will use the new aluminum bumper reinforcing bar to align this mount with a new fabricated frame section.
This is what I was after -
The other pieces were not salvageable
Tomorrow I will build a new outer and inner mount support structure. The OEM is high-strength steel, but if I can fabricate a double wall 16ga cold rolled sleeved mount with inner reinforcements, then I think I will be in the ballpark as far a OEM rigidity and strength are concerned.
Parts started showing up this afternoon -- aluminum bumper reinforcement bar and the new headlight assemblies.
What I really need is the core support to start measuring the frame standoff on the mounts. Hopefully it will show up early in the week.
Onward!
goodfellow:
I did manage to get the inner frame section built out of 18ga steel. The inner section is boxed and braced with a triangulated section of 16ga intended to resist a crush on impact. It will be covered and welded to an outer 16ga shell that will act as the primary bumper support.
Trial fit looked good -
Top section welded in and ready for some clean-up
It's a good fit on the old mount
Things are coming together --
Tomorrow I'll need to fabricate the outer frame support shell out of 16ga, and make this thing a nicely welded support structure again.
Hopefully the core support will show up this week and I can start the reassembly and welding process.
goodfellow:
Finished the outer frame section today. I can't say enough about these little forming bucks that some gent in England invented, and even though i have three sheet metal brakes, making complex bends sometimes limits the use of the brakes. I built this thing a few years ago very "quick and dirty" and it truly is one of my favorite forming tools.
This raised lip for example needed to mimic the original in the Toyota front bumper mount. It looks simple, but without special tooling it's difficult. With my little forming buck i was able to knock one out in less than 30 minutes.
I lightly tacked it up just to check the close fit and to take some measurement. Looks like this will work fine --
Tomorrow I'll weld in the inner support that i fabricated and then hopefully this outer frame section can get tacked in place for final bumper support fitment.
If this all lines up, then the core support should be easily aligned and fit into final position.
Onward
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