After making a little road trip to retrieve a replacement engine for the Trackers, we were heading back home, late at night and in a tired stupor was awakened when a dumbass deer decided to run right in front of us. Luckily reflexes kicked in at the last absolute millisecond and had me hit the brakes to soften the blow and delay the impact with the deer until he/she was 80% past, causing me to hit the animal on the left side of the bumper. This still caused some damage with the headlight housing being fragged along with the left most part of the grille. The left fender was bent up a little bit and pushed into the driver's door a half inch so the door was unable to be opened all the way. As a result, I would have to do some impromptu reconstructive surgery to get this little SUV back on the road again and in a hurry. Luckily I still had a headlight housing that I saved from the first Tracker we had that was scrapped after being partially crushed by a tree. It wasn't perfect but it was still whole. I didn't have a fender or a hood or grille unfortunately. The bumper skin was still good though. I would have to straighten out the rest of the bent sheet metal and try to straighten out the substructure where the headlight housing sits to allow me to remount the housing and be able to remount the fender as straight as possible so the truck doesn't look too goofy. After beating on the metal core support/headlight mounting area, I was able to get the metal straightened out enough to be able to remount the headlight housing. Things sat surprisingly straight, all things considered. The next thing is the fender. I had to straighten out the very front of the fender since the metal was folded in from the impact. After straightening that part out I had to fit the fender then straighten out the top lip where the bolts hold the fender to the inner body so when the hood is closed, the gap along the two members was minimum and even from front to back. I also had to use a large flat screwdriver to pry out the back edge of the fender so it was out a little farther than the door so the door could open and close without binding. Most people would've probably written off this vehicle after suffering so many beatings but when I know I can do some fuckery to put things back together to at least restore the image of a straight vehicle, I will do so because it doesn't make economical sense to trash a car because of a few body flaws that can be corrected, even if they're not perfect. In the meantime I will have to keep an eye out for some replacement panels, and when the time comes, possibly shooting some paint on the thing, even if its just on the replacement panels.
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May 2023
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