2014 Warthog
New member
"Specialists"! Arg! I chuckle every time I see someone misspell something in a post title and then karma gets me 
Hopefully this is the right section.
2014 4runner
I kind of messed up my front end this weekend on some dunes. I took care of most of the minor problems (Plastic pieces popping off their clips, displaced air conditioning condenser etc), but I have one biggish problem left I can't figure out.
What happened: Going down a steep dune face, whoop at the bottom that my font tire dug into, suspension bottomed out and planted at least the lower half of the front face into the sand before popping back up. Was a bit of a hard hit but not insane. Suspension took up 95% of it. The front bumper cover got pressed in a lot but didn't permanently dent it. Sand got up high enough to displace the AC condenser upwards an inch or two.
The Issue: The hood closes and latches perfectly and is perfectly aligned with the 4 hood bumpers. But is about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch above where it should line up with the front end:
What has me really stumped is that I can't even figure out how this is possible, especially the misalignment on the side panels.
If I had bent the internal metal supports for all that plastic junk on the front, then the front may be low but the side panels?
If I had bent the latch or the hood latch hook or cross bar the latch is attached to in any way, the hood bump stops would no longer be touching the hood like they are supposed to.
Hood looks in perfect shape, it is perfectly aligned side to side and front to back it just latches high. And again, it's not the hook or the latch, the 4 bump stops for the hood are still perfectly aligned with the hood and press lightly but firmly into it when closed.
In the picture below I drew a green line that approximates a cross bar that the latch and stops are connected too. The ends of which are attached directly to metal that the side panels are attached to. The cross bar is perfectly flat (used a level on it) and seems perfectly aligned with everything else it touches or is bolted to. (I had all the plastic removed earlier, forgot to take pictures then)
Wondering if there was an expert that maybe had seen this kind of thing before, I see no other signs of a bent frame or anything, and the hit wasn't THAT hard. Enough to bent some up front sheet metal mounting brackets possible, but not the frame or bumper.
In this picture I outline the cross bar that attaches the side quarter panels at the top and is used to hold the hood latch and the hood bump stops. I can't see how the entire hood can be 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch high when latched and still have all 4 bump stops perfectly pressed into the hood when closed and still have the side panels misaligned as they are also attached to the cross bar and I see no bent metal between them :/
I got another picture with the plastic cover off:
Green shows areas of misalignment and red shows areas of alignment (Or possibly the other way around).
You can see how close things that are and are not misaligned really are. If the size quarter panels had been pulled down then those thin mounting brackets (Yellow arrow 1) should be noticeably bend, they look perfect. If the hood really is for some reason the thing that is misaligned, how can each area of red all be misaligned together without also pulling up on parts in green that are attached to it?
Hopefully this is the right section.
2014 4runner
I kind of messed up my front end this weekend on some dunes. I took care of most of the minor problems (Plastic pieces popping off their clips, displaced air conditioning condenser etc), but I have one biggish problem left I can't figure out.
What happened: Going down a steep dune face, whoop at the bottom that my font tire dug into, suspension bottomed out and planted at least the lower half of the front face into the sand before popping back up. Was a bit of a hard hit but not insane. Suspension took up 95% of it. The front bumper cover got pressed in a lot but didn't permanently dent it. Sand got up high enough to displace the AC condenser upwards an inch or two.
The Issue: The hood closes and latches perfectly and is perfectly aligned with the 4 hood bumpers. But is about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch above where it should line up with the front end:
What has me really stumped is that I can't even figure out how this is possible, especially the misalignment on the side panels.
If I had bent the internal metal supports for all that plastic junk on the front, then the front may be low but the side panels?
If I had bent the latch or the hood latch hook or cross bar the latch is attached to in any way, the hood bump stops would no longer be touching the hood like they are supposed to.
Hood looks in perfect shape, it is perfectly aligned side to side and front to back it just latches high. And again, it's not the hook or the latch, the 4 bump stops for the hood are still perfectly aligned with the hood and press lightly but firmly into it when closed.
In the picture below I drew a green line that approximates a cross bar that the latch and stops are connected too. The ends of which are attached directly to metal that the side panels are attached to. The cross bar is perfectly flat (used a level on it) and seems perfectly aligned with everything else it touches or is bolted to. (I had all the plastic removed earlier, forgot to take pictures then)
Wondering if there was an expert that maybe had seen this kind of thing before, I see no other signs of a bent frame or anything, and the hit wasn't THAT hard. Enough to bent some up front sheet metal mounting brackets possible, but not the frame or bumper.
In this picture I outline the cross bar that attaches the side quarter panels at the top and is used to hold the hood latch and the hood bump stops. I can't see how the entire hood can be 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch high when latched and still have all 4 bump stops perfectly pressed into the hood when closed and still have the side panels misaligned as they are also attached to the cross bar and I see no bent metal between them :/
I got another picture with the plastic cover off:
Green shows areas of misalignment and red shows areas of alignment (Or possibly the other way around).
You can see how close things that are and are not misaligned really are. If the size quarter panels had been pulled down then those thin mounting brackets (Yellow arrow 1) should be noticeably bend, they look perfect. If the hood really is for some reason the thing that is misaligned, how can each area of red all be misaligned together without also pulling up on parts in green that are attached to it?
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