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Any XTERRA gurus?

JR4X

JR4X

wheeler
race
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
445
Messages
3,446
Loc
Farmington NM
Short story long. Wife hit a deer with her 2013 XTerra and wiped out the front clip pretty good. Broken headlight, cratered the core support, broken radiator, bumper/cover, grill, hood the whole 9.

Second gens are 2006 to 2015 from what I read but they only look like hers really from 09 to 2015. I found an 06 with a blown engine but looks pretty good. If I swapped the 06 front clip onto my wife’s car it would make it look like a little older car, but we wouldn’t really care about that if we could fix it cheap. I can buy the whole parts car for $1000. Buying brand new parts I’m over $1000 bucks just at a bumper and a headlight. First two pics are of ours. The 3rd pic of the white car is the parts car I can pick up.

So, does anyone know if shit like the core support and radiator would bolt straight in?

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Ended up filing an insurance claim. Adjuster checked it out and gave us a check. After waffling back and forth I decided not to buy the Craigslist car and instead buy all new parts. Yesterday I took the whole thing apart to inventory every part I want to replace. Since I have another vehicle with a winch, I parked the tracker and the XTerra nose to nose and spent a couple hours pulling the core support back straight. I was prepared to buy a new one if I wasn’t satisfied with the shape of it. Surprisingly for as bad as it was bent it would be pretty hard to tell it was in a wreck now (core support reference only) The oil cooler is ruined and seeping, same with the radiator. Got new ones on the way with headlights, a grill, grill support, bumper cover, impact strip, fog lights, plastic clips.
The hood straightened out pretty decent and I got it to line up with the fenders good on both sides. Pretty crazy that it took out the oil cooler up front and the radiator in back without ruining the ac condenser in the middle of them. This is deer strike #2 for the ol XT btw.
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YotaAtieToo said:
Would it be worth it to throw a beefier bumper on it while you're at it? Should make a big difference with #3
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Probably would. To much money and I don’t think the car has enough years of life left in it to justify it. I’ll probably feel different if she hits a deer next month after I fix it.

She puts so many miles a month on it I’m just trying to keep it going hopefully until the car market isn’t retarded so she can buy a new one.
 
Reason 9001 divorce is cheaper.

Squamch said:
I'm pretty sure the bumper mounts are super low on those units...any aftermarket bumper is cantilevered way up off them.
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This.

Unless you're willing to break out the hole saw to make room for some triangulation a better bumper is not going to do shit.
 
arse_sidewards said:
Reason 9001 divorce is cheaper.


This.

Unless you're willing to break out the hole saw to make room for some triangulation a better bumper is not going to do shit.
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I just married this one in June.:lmao:

After working on it, a good bumper will just do more damage to the car. Even if you put struts to the core support, the core support is cheesy soft and would just bend into fragile expensive parts.
 
First pic is after getting done installing the new radiator and oil cooler. You can see I don’t get further than a few feet away from the beer when working on stuff on the weekends.

Second two pics are all buttoned good as new. Weird aside. This an many XTerras came with a plastic cap covering the fog light hole. It’s cheaper to buy the fog lights than it is to by the plastic cap. The wires for the fog lights were rolled up behind the headlights so I bought fog lights and plugged them in. I don’t even know if they work yet but even if not they look better and we’re less money than the covers. Wife was so happy she cried when I showed her. If we’d have opted for the body shop route, it would still be sitting in a back lot somewhere for at least two more weeks
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JR4X said:
I just married this one in June.:lmao:

After working on it, a good bumper will just do more damage to the car. Even if you put struts to the core support, the core support is cheesy soft and would just bend into fragile expensive parts.
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I meant triangulation through the core support and back to the frame. I thought that was obvious considering the website we're on.
 
arse_sidewards said:
I meant triangulation through the core support and back to the frame. I thought that was obvious considering the website we're on.
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I don’t know how that would be obvious given the available room in any modern vehicle. There’s no where to put anything like that in this vehicle. Not and keep things like the HVAC anyway. I can’t even see the frame with the hood popped.
 
JR4X said:
I don’t know how that would be obvious given the available room in any modern vehicle. There’s no where to put anything like that in this vehicle. Not and keep things like the HVAC anyway. I can’t even see the frame with the hood popped.
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Tube bends and compromises. :flipoff2:

You should be able to find the room if you try.

I helped someone triangulate the brush guard in an Explorer Sport Trac once. Wasn't that bad.
 
JR4X said:
I don’t know how that would be obvious given the available room in any modern vehicle. There’s no where to put anything like that in this vehicle. Not and keep things like the HVAC anyway. I can’t even see the frame with the hood popped.
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I had similar issues running the support for the bumper on my 1st gen tundra. It was a bitch. then I had to sawzall it off so they could pull the body off for the frame recall.
 
On my 4runner, I braced it down, under the frame and to the lower a arm mount.

Not as perfect as bracing through the core support towards the shock towers or whatever, but it's 100x's better than just the factory bumper mounts. I'm pretty confident it would hold up to most any deer.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Would it be worth it to throw a beefier bumper on it while you're at it? Should make a big difference with #3
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10 points for hindsight being 20-20. 2 weeks ago she hit another deer and re obliterated her car. Every single thing I straightened or replaced got broken or bent even worse this time. Got 5 months out of the beautiful new front end. Almost the exact same impact just harder. We didn’t want to spend the money on deer killer at the time but I should’ve because now I’m re redoing it.


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So this time, I put it back together with a bumper that I’m confident will protect the radiator and shit. Should’ve done this the first time. New radiator, oil cooler, headlights, that stupid grill support that does all the damage when it turns inside out a new grill and a new ARB bull bar. Not going to install a winch. It was just the best looking one I could buy and bolt on. Happy Mother’s Day to my wifey

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I cannot make the hood line up this time. Is what it is, it’ll work for who it’s for. Oh, the tracker winch makes a pretty sweet straightening machine
 
JR4X said:
I cannot make the hood line up this time. Is what it is, it’ll work for who it’s for. Oh, the tracker winch makes a pretty sweet straightening machine
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Ream the holes for hood latch to get the hood down further. Adjust the rubber snubbers at the corners accordingly. If they aren’t the screw in style smack the core support with a deadblow to get them down a little.
 
That sucks to pop another one of those fuckers again. That ARB bumper does look good, been trying to find a used one for my Frontier.
 
I always liked these, then I saw you have a 6.4L and have poor judgement:flipoff2:

Guess I'll keep looking past them.
 
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TRINDU said:
I always liked these, then I saw you have a 6.4L and have poor judgement:flipoff2:

Guess I'll keep looking past them.
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What would you say if I told that 6.4 has 200K miles on it and has never had the cab lifted? 498 rwhp and probably 100k miles towing a trailer. Wish I could find another one, super low miles, grandpa truck. Delete it way early like this one and just run the hell out of it b
 
JR4X said:
What would you say if I told that 6.4 has 200K miles on it and has never had the cab lifted? 498 rwhp and probably 100k miles towing a trailer. Wish I could find another one, super low miles, grandpa truck. Delete it way early like this one and just run the hell out of it b
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I'd say you're on borrowed time.

I see them when <100k with blow by, knocks, and imitating the Exxon Valdez weekly... if they're not already blown up. Not worth playing hot potato with that grenade.

Great truck. Shitastic engine. Hard to 'delete it early' a decade down the road.
 
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TRINDU said:
I'd say you're on borrowed time.

I see them when <100k with blow by, knocks, and imitating the Exxon Valdez weekly... if they're not already blown up. Not worth playing hot potato with that grenade.

Great truck. Shitastic engine. Hard to 'delete it early' a decade down the road.
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I’ve had that one long enough that it was definitely deleted early. Still had 25K miles of warranty left when I threw the warranty away to delete it. I wouldn’t consider having one that had 100K and still had the DPF and could regen. This truck has been awesome, 10/10 would do again if I could find another one like it.
 
JR4X said:
I’ve had that one long enough that it was definitely deleted early. Still had 25K miles of warranty left when I threw the warranty away to delete it. I wouldn’t consider having one that had 100K and still had the DPF and could regen. This truck has been awesome, 10/10 would do again if I could find another one like it.
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I guarantee you can find another. The Nissan looks fine to work on, hope it takes a hit this time around
 
TRINDU said:
I guarantee you can find another. The Nissan looks fine to work on, hope it takes a hit this time around
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And BTW, the wife had the XTerra long before I met her. She bought it new many years before we ever hooked up. So don’t let the 6.4 XTerra thing sway you. She’s probably got better taste than I do.
 
Byro said:
Ream the holes for hood latch to get the hood down further. Adjust the rubber snubbers at the corners accordingly. If they aren’t the screw in style smack the core support with a deadblow to get them down a little.
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The rubber snubbers don’t touch the core support, it latches fully but about 1/4” high. The tip of the hood is hitting the top of the grill. Gonna let it ride as is for now.
 
Gots_a_sol said:
That sucks to pop another one of those fuckers again. That ARB bumper does look good, been trying to find a used one for my Frontier.
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I have a used one for an Isuzu Rodeo at the shop that you could probably adapt. Someone had it rhino lined but never installed it. $200
 
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