Okay guys, so I know this is a long shot but it's worth a try! I don't have any photos at the moment but I can get some tomorrow if some things are unclear but I will do my best to explain. Before people comment this is already posted I have searched for hours and cannot find anything (possibly because I am 110% newbie to trucking and have no idea what this is actually is called. I live in Australia by the way so this is probably called a 1995 pickup in America. Here goes!

Okay so I have bought an RN85 1995 Hilux (22r carbie) for $300, the engine and box are in 100% perfect condition and run like new, but the car was crashed into a tree at a low speed. Upon impact, what I determine to be the radiator support panel and the fender support apron/panel (what the internet has told me) have been pushed back and crumpled around 30mm. In the process, the bonnet has been bent up and destroyed so I have removed that and taken off the drivers side guard. I am wondering what the best way would be to repair/fix the fender support panel/apron will line up with a new fender. I have test fitted a new guard/fender and the two holes closest to the bumper don't line up by around 10mm and when the new bonnet was put on there was a drop between it and the fender of around 8mm.

I know sourcing and replacing the radiator support panel will be quite easy but I am not too sure about the fender support/apron.

Has anyone ever had this problem and fixed it? I am only looking for everything to line up properly I'm not too worried about anything else!

 

There are lots of threaded holes in the inner fender and core support. I've always had good luck bolting tabs to those holes (sometimes 2 or 3 at once so the nuts don't get ripped out of the panel) and use what we call a come-a-long here in the US connecting the tabs to a solid object such as a tree or heavy vehicle and run the come-a-long to pull the sheet metal back into shape.

 

Yeah I have tried that White Trash and it pulled out a fair bit of the crumple but it is at a point now where it will go no further. I have been attaching what we call a 4x4 snatch strap to the inner fender/engine bay side wall and tugging it with a Landcruiser. The engine bay side wall that the fender bolts into has actually been pushed down about 15mm as well so what I am thinking about doing and simply measuring the difference when lined up with a straight bonnet and welding a 2 inch piece of metal by whatever the difference is deep to the engine bay side wall and tapping a hole for the fender.
As for the issue of it being pushed back I have somewhat settled on the fact that I will need a new radiator core support so what I am thinking of doing is again measuring the difference between the non-damaged side and the damaged side and building this up again with a strip of metal as deep as the difference that would be welded to the front of the engine bay side wall where the radiator core support would sit.

What are your thoughts on this solution? Keeping in mind I am only keeping the ute as a daily and am not really phased as to whether it is "clean" built or not ahah.

 

If you're already replacing the core support just go ahead and replace the whole front clip. It's only 20-30 more spot welds to drill and the whole thing will come right off no problem.

 

I am a very new person to trucks and cars if you haven't noticed ahaha. What is replacing the whole front clip? like does that involve both the engine bay side walls as well as the radiator core support? How do I do it? is it really worth it for just a daily run around? and how much roughly does it cost in comparison to just paying for the radiator core support?

Sorry for all the questions ahah, but I am somewhat overwhelmed with the whole situation at the moment, my apologies

 

Would it by any chance be suitable to build a tube front? Any thoughts or criticisms welcome!

 

Tube front would be nice. As long as its well thought out and can take an impact

 

Yeah, It will need to be well thought out to keep it as simple as possible and looking as clean as possible. I was also thinking about putting sheet metal on the inside of the tubes between the shock tower and radiator to make it look even cleaner

 

Probably going to have to tie it into one of the body mounts to give it some strength.

 

Oh yeah for sure! But I don't want it too strong that under impact it will bend the chassis like having a bullbar. I want to make it with weak points so it crumples a bit under impact and just make everything removable and modular so it can be replaced with relative ease if that makes any sense?

 

I get that. It would probably be easier to straighten the frame after impact then trying to figure out how to make tubing crumple

 

I have front clips available and could possibly ship it internationally to you through amazon

 

That was exactly what I was thinking. I have a few ideas and I think that once the radiator core support is removed, the side wall will straighten out easier than with it on. I think I can just get it as close as I can to perfect then build it up and redrill the holes for the guard exactly where they should be (they probably will never go back to perfect with straightening).

 

I am deciding whether I want to do a Surf front conversion or not at the moment. I have possibly sourced a wrecked LN130 Donor Surf but if that doesn't work out I will definitely get back to you

 

Does anyone have any detailed photos on these spot welds and where they are? I am a newbie and don't want to go hacking into it and wrecking the whole cab. Cheers!

 

See the dimples on the edge there? Those are the spot welds that need to be drilled. Follow them around into the fender well and across the top edge on both sides and the whole structure will come right off.

 

Thank you so much! I found those and wasn't 100% that they were the right ones before I go drilling away. Cheers!