The great bedside replacement journey

Hello everyone! This is my first post on Tacoma World; however, I have perused these forums for quite a while now, especially since my sister backed her own Tacoma into mine at 20+ miles an hour and causing some pretty nasty damage.

Long story: I stay at my parents house in order to go to film school in Savannah, GA (more money for film equipment and soon taco parts). One morning I wake up to her sobbing and the first thing I'm thinking is she ran over the cat. Nope, she said she hit my truck and claims "it's very bad". I go outside and see the superficial exterior damage, the bedside is toast, bumper is out of place, and the tail light is cracked in the back. Yikes.

Fast forward to a week later while I'm trying to save to fix the bedside, a friend and fellow student opens my tailgate to put some film equipment in the back, leaves it open without telling me, and I jack knife the tailgate while towing my 14 foot single axle. He sure as hell doesn't have the money to pay either. So now I have a busted bedside and a tailgate that's fused shut.

I get a quote for the bed side, bumper, tail light, and tailgate:$3,100

Yeah that's not happening, I have trouble finding taco bell money under my seats.

A few months pass and I produce a couple corporate videos, commercials, etc. and I have enough dough to justify fixing the truck. After a months long search process, a find a decent bedside that's the same color as mine in North Carolina for $350.

I leave the next day at 6:00AM, and drive straight there. Give me a water bottle and some crackers and I'm on my way. I arrive later in the day and strap that sucker down in the bed (an unfortunate mistake)

I stay up to 5AM putting this thing on, only to step back and see that during transport, there's three shallow dents in the panel. I stand there staring for a good 5 minutes before I lay on that cold garage floor and contemplate round house kicking the damn thing. (I'm probably over reacting but a 9 hour drive is a 9 hour drive).
Hey, at least it doesn't look like a bull charged my fender anymore.

My old man knows a guy in town that can pull a mean dent, so we'll see if I can get it back to mint condition.

Stay posted for the tailgate fix and debadge/3M chip guard removal, dent fixes, tail light fix, headlight replacement, and some stealth custom series sr8's (whenever they get in stock)

Sorry if I'm rambling on, my sleep schedule is trash and I figured I'd make an account and vent since I spend so much time on here anyway.

 

Welcome to TW.... Nice ride!!! Hope you get that bedside straightened out.

 

Thanks! I feel like TW is going to help me get this thing sitting pretty, I just have to get the body in check before justifying spending those Benjamin's.

 

Oh yes,about those Benjamin’s .... easy come,easy go!!!

 

$3,100 quote for parts only?

 

Oh no, for parts, paint, and labor. As soon as I heard that number I just started looking for parts on online salvage yards, didn't have luck locally.

 

Yea, that's steep and just for money. I can only guess they were going through a dealer for parts and wanting to paint match for paint hours. A do-it-right shop should have immediately looked for a salvage yard to get a paint matched panel, silver mica wrecks are quite common since that color is everywhere. They should have had much better access to "wholesale" salvage yard inventory that can be delivered basically across the entire state.

To sum it up: You did gud. Real gud.

 

Thanks boss. I used to go to a local shop that would try to use salvage yard inventory but they went under a few years back. You're totally right about the silver Mica availability, it would have been like pulling teeth to find a blue or red panel. I just hope I can get those dents out though, I can't stop looking at them for the life of me.

 

Welcome to TW!