Weekend Project - RAV4 S.O.S.

Sunday morning, 9:00 AM, I woke up and started working on the family's Toyota RAV4. My mother had recently had a small accident. Although she wasn't hurt, I couldn't say the same about the car. The paint was scratched, and the bumper was dented so bad that the fog lights became tilted. It took me about three hours to remove the bumper, fix the dent, and install everything back into place.

Before: The bumper is dented, scratched to the core, and even coming off.

After: The bumper is re-aligned, the huge dent is 95% removed. The paint will be a story for another day, if I ever get to that.

It was extremely cold that morning, at 40 degrees my fingers were frozen to the bone while I was figuring out how to remove the bumper. It was relatively easy, since all bumpers are held onto cars pretty similarly. There are always bolts on the top, bottom, and the sides. I started off by removing all the plastic inserts and bolts on the top. Then I removed every bolt on the bottom. Next I removed the inserts and clips holding the fender liner in place, peeled the liner back, and looked for bolts holding the bumper to the fender. When you remove the bumper, make sure things like the fog light harnesses are disconnected from the bumper. The removal process took me about an hour and a half. Sadly I couldn't find any documentation on how to remove this bumper online, otherwise I'm pretty sure I could have cut that time in half.

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun doing this. Other than my own cars, I have never really worked on somebody else's car. The good news is, it saved my parents a couple of bucks, and they were pretty happy about it too.

I can't wait to start modifying more complex stuff on my STI. Incase you guys were wondering, "Why isn't Jagan getting into the good stuff yet?!"

Be patient guys, I have long term plans for this beast, they will slowly unfold.