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Headlamps and Grille Botched Together. How Should This All Fit?

stuzbot

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2021
Messages
469
Hi chaps and chapesses. Hoping you can help me unravel this mystery with my 90.

As I mentioned in my 'Got One at Last!' thread; I pretty much devoted all my time looking over the truck before purchasing to checking the chassis for corrosion, checking the state of the transmission fluid, checking the engine for blowback, making sure all the 4x4 stuff worked. ie. the important mechanical bits; that I pretty much just gave the bodywork a cursory glance.

Only when I got the beastie home and had a bit more time to prod and poke around under the bonnet did I find that the front headlamps and grille section are pretty wobbly and loose and have obviously broken and been botched together at some stage. Trouble is that I can't seem to work out how everything should go together down there.

A bevvy of photos to illustrate:

FRONT LEFT QUARTER LIGHT --This is actually loose at the front inner edge. I can wiggle it up and down about a cm. And, as you can see here, it's sitting slightly out of alinement with the main headlight...

20210616_173003.jpg


20210616_173012.jpg


FRONT LEFT HEADLIGHT --Looking down from above you can see that the main headlight housing attachment point is cracked at the right hand side and has been clumsily repaired with some kind of glue. Sorry. I mis-aimed the camera a bit, so it's just peeping in at the edge...

20210616_173019.jpg


Similar story with the bottom fixing on that side. It's not attached to anything. There's a couple of bolt holes [circled]. But they don't line up with anything and that whole corner of the headlamp fixing is just held together with cable ties, one of which is tied round the aircon compressor pipe [rectangled]. And, yes, there's actually a piece of purple cardboard wedged in there, to stop things from wobbling too much [f**king unbelievable!].

20210616_173027.jpg


CENTRE GRILLE --Moving across to the centre of the grille, there is another fixing that is obviously broken. Those two pieces won't close together. The grille doesn't push back any further. So either there's a piece completely missing here or something's very bent out of shape...

20210616_173038.jpg


Directly underneath that is another bolt hole which, as with the ones on the headlight housing, doesn't line up with anything. So what is it meant to fasten to?...

20210616_173106.jpg


FRONT RIGHT HEADLAMP --And then on to the right hand headlamp, which also seems to be looking for something to attach to, when there's nothing there. and below that you can see that the bottom right corner of the grille is also held on with a cable tie...

20210616_173048.jpg


If I could work out how everything is meant to fit together [ie. what is meant to go in those various bolt holes and what is meant to attach to what and where, I could make up some brackets to fix it all together a bit more securely than these crappy cable ties, at least until I can find the replacement parts from a breakers. But none of the individual parts seem to line up properly to connect to the others, so I'm starting to wonder has someone cobbled together a front end grille and lights from other parts of slightly different model Land Cruisers?

Incidentally, as I mentioned in my other thread, I also noticed that the bottom of the two horizontal bars which cross over in front of the aircon heat exchanger is bent back in towards the exchanger so that it stops just before touching it [Sorry. Didn't get a photo of that]. So, obviously, at some time the motor has hit something low in front with enough force to bend that bar inwards by a few cm. Which would no doubt have done quite a job on the grille / headlamp area, which sits in front of it.

So could some helpful soul post some pics of what that whole area should look like and how everything should fit together there. So I can try and work out what I need to do to stabilise things there?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT --PS: This is what the front of my truck looks like. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the various model revisions to know whether this is all as it should be for a 2000 reg VX Colorado, or if it's a Frankenstein construction from slightly incompatible parts...

20210604_174412.jpg
 
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Have a look for a hot stapler. Absolutely perfect for fixing stuff like this. Bought one recently. Been on a mending spree.
 
Have a look for a hot stapler. Absolutely perfect for fixing stuff like this. Bought one recently. Been on a mending spree.

Ooh! --a new gadget to check out. Never heard of one of those before. It looks a bit like a bigger version of a hot glue gun. But hopefully more effective than those, as I've always found them to be pretty pants.
 
I bought several hundred stainless staples to go with it. Loads of different curves and sizes. Cost about £10. The tool is really simple. Just heats up the staple, you bury it in the plastic and let go. I've mended a washing machine handle with it. boxes, fairings, brackets, bumpers. If it melts, you can mend it. Designed primariliy for auto use I believe.
 
That's probably what mine looked like, before someone broke out the cable ties and purple cardboard.
 
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IIRC that happened in Brussels o the second day of a 14 day trip and it still got all the way to Romainia and back without opening the bonnet . Hard to tell from your pics but i think there are some bits missing , like a 3 part flimsy metal frame which will cost more in postage from a breaker than it will to buy . I have looked for my repair thread and i can't find it but i will search for a pic of the parts .
 
I don't store pics any more because its easier to wipe win10 and start again tha it is to fix it after every update so while searching for my own threads i found this which was taken after repair

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Same thread doesn't show it well but as good as i hope to find look at the "T" directly under headlights it's 4 parts and really serves no purpose other than to help line things up . I removed the middle section permanently later because it was in the way of my winch .

 
look at the "T" directly under headlights it's 4 parts and really serves no purpose other than to help line things up..

Cheers. Can't see photos too well at the mo" coz I'm on my phone. But confirms my suspicions that I'm missing some kind of supporting bracket/s in there.
 
look at the "T" directly under headlights it's 4 parts and really serves no purpose other than to help line things up


Is this the piece you mean @Shayne ?...


tpiece.jpg



I'm not near the truck at the minute. But I'm pretty sure I'm missing that piece. I've not got a vertical bar in front of the aircon heat exchanger and the only thing below the headlamp housings and grille is the top of the grey plastic bumper cover. That's what was puzzling me. All those holes in the bottom of headlamp housings and grille with no corresponding holes in the top of the bumper cover for them to bolt to each other.

Also, as I've mentioned previously, the lower horizontal bar in front of the aircon heat exchanger on mine is bent inwards until it almost touches the exchanger. It looks from @Shayne's pic that that bar is what the T-piece attaches to. So it's all becoming clearer. Looks like someone shunted the front end which broke off or bent [so it had to be removed] that T-piece and bent in the bar it fixes to. And then, whatever was left was stuck back together with cardboard and cable ties.

Top quality work! And I say that as someone who's been guilty of the odd emergency botch or two himself, in the past. I don't think I ever resorted to cardboard as a permanent repair medium though!

Anyway, it shouldn't be too difficult to fab up some kind of bracket to support things in the appropriate places. Even if I have to deviate from Mr. T's original design.

Just taken a few pics...

Cheers. Comparing yours and mine, it looks like I'm not missing a bolt at the bottom of the headlamp housing. But there's a plastic lug broken off onto which the grille clips [L circle] and you also look to have a bolt [R circle] which I'm presuming attaches to that T-bar @Shayne mentioned....

bottomheadlight.jpg


20210616_173027.jpg


And, as I suspected, I'm missing a section of the centre bracket on the grille. Which explains why those two ends won't meet....

centrebit.jpg


20210616_173038.jpg


Thanks all. That gives me something to work from now. Not knowing what it was all supposed to look like in there, I was scratching my head a bit, wondering why nothing looked like it wanted to fit together properly. Finding out it's because my jigsaw has a piece missing is a great help.
 
Mind you. I'm still puzzled as to how someone can have damaged that area so badly without knackering the bumper ---seeing as it's all behind the bumper. Maybe they hit a low bollard or rock or something?

...or maybe they did smash the bumper too and, when I take the plastic bumper cover off, I'll find the bumper underneath it has been lovingly reconstructed from cornflakes boxes.

Eek!
 
0D9790FF-A64D-4FC8-BE25-C0A611862DA3.jpeg
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More pics with some light in there. Three of those plastic clips with a plastic screw in the middle hold the bottom of the grille on
 
Mind you. I'm still puzzled as to how someone can have damaged that area so badly without knackering the bumper ---seeing as it's all behind the bumper. Maybe they hit a low bollard or rock or something?

...or maybe they did smash the bumper too and, when I take the plastic bumper cover off, I'll find the bumper underneath it has been lovingly reconstructed from cornflakes boxes.

Eek!
The plastic bumper is thermoplastic (or whatever) and will pop back into shape with some heat/hot water, even after a fair bit of punishment. The steel cross piece behind can also be bent back into shape without too much hassle.

Don't ask me how I know.... :icon-wink:
 
BTW --a bit off-topic, save for the fact @Chris mentioned them above ^^^

While looking on Amazon to find out what a 'Hot Stapler' was, I noticed that they've got a cheap'n'cheerful Chinese one on offer at the minute for £15,99, supposedly reduced from £45,99 --just in case anyone else has been thinking of getting one.

I don't think it's what I need at the moment. Not for this job anyway. So I must resist 'New Gadget Acquisition Syndrome' this time.


SS 2021-06-17 at 14.43.39.png
 
Damn there's cheap and then there's that!
 
Aye. But, to be fair, is not exactly a high tech gadget is it?

Probably, as with soldering, you can pick up a basic plug'n'play iron for a tenner, or pay around £100 for a fancy schmancy temperature controlled 'soldering station' with digital display.
 
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