What I got up to this weekend

[FlyZLow]

I bought my '04 Sport with a restored salvage title knowing that it had been in an accident, but I was deceived by the seller about the state of the airbags (my fault in the end, I should have known better than to trust a stranger and not check things out for myself). So, I'm going through the process of replacing/rebuilding the airbag components. I had to remove the airbag computer, driver's bag, clockspring, passenger bag (which means removing the whole dash), front seatbelts, and front impact sensors. I sent the seatbelts, clockspring, and computer module off to be rebuilt/reset and ordered new impact sensors and passenger side bag (driver's side had been replaced by seller to cover up deployment, but was not even hooked up to the clockspring because the connectors were toast).

Total cost for everything (including a used dash from a local junkyard) should come in right around $1k. I think that's not too bad considering what an insane oversight it was on my part to not realize that they had deployed in the first place, so I guess I'll consider myself relatively lucky to get out of this one for that amount of money if all goes well. Any thoughts on tips on reassembly (aside from the obvious of leaving the battery disconnected, etc).

Just in case anyone doesn't know, the reason that the seatbelts have to be rebuilt after an accident is that they have pre-tensioners built in that fire similarly to airbags and auto-tighten the seatbelts very quickly as a collision happens to limit the amount of travel in the belt before it starts to decelerate your momentum going forward. The pre-tensioners are damaged when they fire and require a rebuild/replacement every time similarly to the clockspring on the driver's airbag. I personally wasn't aware of this before I started looking into this stuff, so that's just FYI.

I do have to say that I'm really impressed with the design considerations that Toyota put into how this interior goes together. I can't believe that I took that whole thing apart w/o breaking a single plastic clip and there really wasn't any hard-part to speak of. Everything was similar in design and logical, which is a refreshing change after working on my S60R.

- Scott

 

[sonerick]

HA! I used to have an R too... Wicked fun cars, but glad I ditched it for a Toyota.

Sorry, I have no advice for you, but good luck with your rebuild, that's pretty cool.

 

[blaniac22]

Wow...no advice that isn't common sense (double check the connections, etc) for you either, but I have to say that looks like a pretty massive undertaking. I feel like I'm looking at an operating table in the ER.

Good luck!

 

[FlyZLow]

Thanks. I haven't had the R for long, but so far it seems not even in the same ballpark as Toyota in terms of reliability and serviceability. It is fun though and I think it'll be a nice car once I get it all situated the way I want it (maintenance and mod wise).

Heh. I just realized that my thread title makes it sound like I woke up this weekend to find my dash all missing.

 

[snowbrdr033]

WOW! That really sucks you had to go through all that AND didn't check it out beforehand, although it was pretty F'ed up on his part for deceiving you into that. Interesting mechanics behind everything though, it's amazing how scientific and complex cars have become over the decades.

Just think back when Henry Ford came out with the first production model cars and you had to crank start them or when they had wood wheels rather than our nice rubber ones now. haha. Good luck with this undertaking!!

 

[FlyZLow]

WOW! That really sucks you had to go through all that AND didn't check it out beforehand, although it was pretty F'ed up on his part for deceiving you into that.

Yeah, I wasn't happy about the deception, but in retrospect I really should have seen that something wasn't right. After I thought about it more, there were a number of warning signs that I somehow glazed over. But oh well, I'll just consider it a learning experience and move on. I mean, I paid thousands of dollars for college, so I don't really see a difference between that and this. : Besides, I don't like to dwell on the negative. :happens:

I went to the only junkyard in Tucson that has a 4th gen dash today, but they couldn't find it for some reason so it was a complete waste of time. They called me later and said that they had found it, but that it had some knicks and scratches from when they cut the front clip off of the donor truck. So, I'm going to go look at it, but I'm guessing I'm still going to be on the hunt for a grey/black dash if anyone has a lead on one. It looks like I can get a new one from Camelback Toyota for about $900, but I was hoping to find a decent used one for under $400.

 

[Djrashonal]

Which Junk Yard did you talk to?

 

[seanzorio]

I went to the only junkyard in Tucson that has a 4th gen dash today, but they couldn't find it for some reason so it was a complete waste of time. They called me later and said that they had found it, but that it had some knicks and scratches from when they cut the front clip off of the donor truck. So, I'm going to go look at it, but I'm guessing I'm still going to be on the hunt for a grey/black dash if anyone has a lead on one. It looks like I can get a new one from Camelback Toyota for about $900, but I was hoping to find a decent used one for under $400.

Good luck finding a good used one! Both mine and my coworkers here have cracked/split.

 

[FlyZLow]

Which Junk Yard did you talk to?

New Way Auto down on 4th

 

[FlyZLow]

Update for anyone interested.

I pretty much got everything back together. The scratches in the junkyard dash were really small and mostly near the windshield where you can't see them anyway due to how the dash angles down there. They even knocked $50 off of the price, so it was a no-brainer. I did all of the install yesterday. I'd say it took me about 4-5 hours going slow and making sure I did everything correctly. There are only 2 issues that I still have to resolve before it's 100%.

1) I can't figure out how to plug the damn front impact sensors in. The sensors are brand new and the harness clips match the shape of the sensors, but when I try to connect them, the harness clip only goes on about half way and doesn't lock on. I haven't tried any kind of grease yet or anything. I was thinking that there must be some kind of trick to it, but I'm kind of stumped. Has anyone disconnected and reconnected those impact sensor clips before? If anyone wants to look at them, they're on both sides of the radiator bolted to a cross member that runs across the front side of the radiator.

2) I used myairbags.com for the clockspring and seatbelt pretensioner rebuilds as well as a reset of the airbag control module. I was super happy with their service. They got my parts on a Friday and sent them back out to me all done on Saturday (they advertise a 24-hr turnaround, but I was impressed that included the weekend). The parts arrived back to me on Monday. The price was very reasonable (less than 1/2 of what the dealership would charge just for a new control module) and the work looked well done. However, I did have 1 problem. I left the lower anchor bolts attached to the seatbelt straps and they only returned 1 of the 2. The bolts are a specialty part that is made just for that application, so I'll have to get one from a dealership. I guess I should have removed them, but they are kind of pressed into a nylon grommet thing, so I just left them in. So, that's annoying, but overall I'm still pretty happy with the service.

As soon as I can get those airbag sensors connected, I'll be ready to hook the battery back up and hope that the SRS light doesn't come on. I might take it down to the dealership and see if they can run a diagnostic on the system just to make sure that it's functional, but I assume that if the light isn't on then the control module thinks that the system is working. Correct? I know not many of you have dealt with this stuff on these trucks, but maybe there are techs on here who know.

- Scott

 

[FlyZLow]

Oh, btw, I meant to include a price breakdown for anyone that might be looking to do this in the future. Here's what I ended up paying for everything (prices include shipping fees and/or tax where applicable):

Clockspring rebuild, Module reset, Seat belt tensioners rebuild - $265
Front impact sensors - $135
Passenger airbag - $165
Dash - $275

Total - $815

As mentioned before, I didn't have to buy a driver's side bag because it was apparently replaced by the previous owner. If I had, the number would have ended up right at $1,000 as there are plenty on eBay for just under $200.

I'm not sure exactly what a collision repair center would have quoted for the repair, but I feel confident that it would probably have been in the $4-5k range for all new parts and $100/hr labor. This is just FYI for anyone who has a truck that gets totalled, but they want to consider buying it back. You can do the job yourself for about a grand and maybe 10 or so hours of labor.

 

[Dougtoms01]

Good stuff, I would never have attempted that. I got fed up with my bench seat in my 2008 Tacoma. I disconnected the air bags and put in buckets. Being a lot older than you, I remember driving with just the seat belts and we did fine . I talked to the techs and there was no way to re-engage my air bags. Like you said, lots of things interdependant. Best regards, Doug

 

[bste3]

wow, weird, my last car was an R too!

 

[Husker Z]

HA! I used to have an R too... Wicked fun cars, but glad I ditched it for a Toyota.

Sorry, I have no advice for you, but good luck with your rebuild, that's pretty cool.

Here's another previous R owner. Agree, great, fun cars, but a bit*h to work on.

 

[TRDCal]

Was the SRS light not on when you purchased the truck? like did the previous owner pull the bulb or something? Or was it on and you didnt worry about it?

 

[FlyZLow]

Was the SRS light not on when you purchased the truck? like did the previous owner pull the bulb or something? Or was it on and you didnt worry about it?

It was on. The previous owner said that he had it checked out by the dealership and that they said it just had a code in it from the crash and they wanted $200 to clear it, so he didn't do it. I guess he was sort of telling the truth really. It had a code in it from the crash because the airbags deployed (he just forgot to mention that part I guess). There was a dash mat on the dash and it didn't even occur to me to look under it, or I would have seen the big X in the dash where the passenger side airbag had blown through. He showed me the invoice from the dealership to repair the crash damage and it was all rear-end damage. His story was that the truck was only hit in the rear, so I just didn't expect that the front airbags would have deployed. Since I got the truck home and really checked it out, I can see now that it definitely also sustained front end damage. At the time I was looking at the repair estimate I was actually thinking to myself "hmm .. this doesn't seem like enough for them to have totalled the truck," but I guess I just glazed over it in my mind.

So, yeah, basically I was just a sucker. I should have connected the dots, but I liked the truck, the body work was all done very well, and the price was really good. To be honest, even with the airbag setback, I'm still really happy with what I got for the money. Even with all new brakes, adding homelink buttons, a full detail job inside and out, a new set of LTX MS2s, and the airbag stuff, I still have less than $12k in this thing with 85k miles on it. The thing drives like new and cosmetically there is very little evidence that it was ever crashed. That seems like a pretty good deal for a V8 4Runner that's clean inside and out with new tires, new brakes, a bunch of new body parts, and now a whole new airbag system.

I'm not worried about resale value because I plan on driving it more or less into the ground, like I have with my '99. I bought my '99 7 years ago with 80k miles on it and it has 200k now. I paid $14k and hope to sell for $3-4k. It has only needed about $3k in total maintenance (tires once, brakes twice, oil every 5k, spark plugs once, air filters and other fluids periodically) and repair costs (MAF, driveshaft u-joints, shocks, some emissions thing) over the entire 7 years that I've owned it, which is truly astonishing. So, needless to say, it's been an unbelievable value in my mind, especially considering the fairly heavy towing I've done with it. I would totally keep it just for the fun of it if I didn't already have 3 other cars taking up my 3 garage spots.