Well, it all started thursday night. Bought 8 quarts of gear oil to drain and refil my differentials, transmission, and transfer case. On the way home after the purchase, some of the bottles fell over, one of which the lid wasnt attatched, though the lid itself is sealed twice to prevent leaks, it doesnt help if they forget tot attatch it to the bottle.

Well, when I got where I was headed, I found my passenger front floormat full of heavy weight gear oil and it had overflown onto the carpet and started seeping under interior pannels. I spent 2 hours and 2 rolls of paper towels trying to clean it up. I was staying in a campground for the week so there I was in a parking spot outside the bath house with interior panels laying everywhere, oil pouring out of the inside of my truck and dripping all down the side in the dark trying to take my truck apart with a leatherman. (no pics, sorry I was trying to clean it as quickly as i could so it wouldnt keep seeping everywhere)

I worked 4 12 hour days up till that point, then didnt get to sleep till 1:00am that night from cleaning. got up at 5:00 the next day and worked till noon. I live two hours away from where I work (which is why I camp during the week). On the way home i stopped back at advance auto, bought another quart of oil and some carpet cleaner and headed home.

about an hour into the trip I started getting drowsy (from the lack of sleep the night before). nodded off once and hit the shoulder and woke me up, so I was looking for a place to pull off. But these are back country roads that dont have many pulloffs at all, and I missed two because they were right behind blind turns...

Well, one thing led to another, and I nodded off again before I had found a place to pull off, looked up and I was already headed towards the ditch.

Well, there were quite a few choice words flying out of my mouth. When I hit, my sunglasses went flying off, and the cooler I had in the back hit the passenger seat and was laying upside down (pretty big cooler). I figured I was SOL gonna be there with a smashed radiator or multiple punctured tires. but I guess you could say it was a pleasant surprise when I got out to assess the damage. after hitting at ditch running 50 mph, the only thing wrong was a little bend in some of the front body pannels near the right headlight, and the bumper was bent in a little so it would rub when i barely turned the wheel.

Looked over all the damage and figured it was ok to drive slow. so found a repair shop a few miles down the road, he took a cumalong and helped me pull my bumper back out and get the rocks out of my tire that were wedged between it and the rim.

The worst part of it is that there is no one to blame but me, and I always take care of my truck, until this one bad situation led to a worse situation... now I'm just pissed off, and need to try and fix it. I'm gonna work on it some today,and hopefully its not too terribly hard to get it looking decent again.

But from what I can tell there isnt any mechanical damage asside from the wheels being out of alignment.

 

WOW. I'm sorry that happened to you. I've nodded off a few times while driving but I was lucky. I think you're pretty lucky also, in that there was a hill to run into or you could have been off into some trees and things could have been much worse. Maybe this was a small warning from the driving gods...

 

Pretty minor..you're lucky. Did you check your airfilter to see if you sucked any mud chunks into your deckplate??

I've had highway hypnosis happen before and it is not fun, as I'm sure you well know by now. Definitely not something to try and tough it out.

 

Your extremely lucky that you didn't launch off a cliff! Its hard to see the damage in those pics.

 

yeah, thankfully that screen mod I added to my airfilter kept most of the mud out of it, but theres mud so far up in the frame and wheels I dont think i'm gonna be able to get it out. I wanted to go ford the river a few times, but its up so high, and the way my luck has been going I'd get washed away and then have a soggy 4runner too.

 

Yeah, ask the guy that had to leave his 1st gen runner in a rising creek for a couple days....

 

Well at least you are ok. And yes you got lucky, that you didnt die or kill someone. Once the road hypnosis/sleepies starts to kick in you have to pull over..even if its the shoulder of the road. A tired driver whose passin out is no better than someone whose DUI

 

get some sleep

 

id beat someones @$$

 

OK, well after spending a few hours with some tools taking appart, beating with rubber mallet, and cleaning mud out of EVERYWHERE, this is what I have:

The 4runner has some scratches now
My front right quarterpannel is pretty scratched up, but most of it should come out with some scratch remover (I hope)


the chrome bumper is a little scraped up too


and my rim took a pretty good beating on some rocks it seems.


The engine bay is now much cleaner


and the crack between quarter pannel and hood isnt so bent out of shape now, and the lights seem to be aligned (though I'll test em tonight when it gets dark)


oh and last but not least, it seems I did find a casualty of the impact... my front swaybar link... the driverside one is straight.... and well... :pat:



All in all, Thank God and thank Toyota cause I came out without a scratch, just a good bit of ego bashing. I'm so glad there wasnt more damage than this. Oh and when I thought it was knocked out of alignment, It was wobbling like crazy, but it seems it was just the many pounds of mud packed into the wheels, cause its back to no wobble at all.

 

Those swaybar links seem to be the "break" of the week component. Looks like no one will be able to tell what happened unless they get very close and know what to be looking for.

 

you are lucky no one is hurt and all you have is a few scratches especially coming around that corner.
consider yourself exteremly fortunate you wnet into the ditch rather than incoming traffic.
I had a similar incident 10 years back and got a helicopter ride to the hospital.
you got real, real lucky.

 

who climbed that hill on the side of the road behind you? did you get to see that atleast? glad to hear you are alright though!

 

If by "climbed the hill" you mean all that dirt kicked out in the road, thats where I hit... not sure how it kicked it all out in the road like that, but after hitting I slid down the ditch to where I stopped there. I woke up as my right tire hit the shoulder, but it was too late by that point, but at least I was pointed down the ditch instead of straight into the hill.

 

well thats good that ur aight. When bro had just bought his 84 pickup. He and my dad were on the way home from texas fand he fell asleep on the interstate twice. the first one the woke up and got an ear full from my dad. the second time a police officer happened to see him and he got a ticket for it. Good thing there werent any cops around.

 

:eek:

 

I got close to something like that. 1200 mile stretch, straight. stupid. got that bobble-head feeling and thought I could fight it off... My Datsun did 3 360s on an open highway (luckily 3am in the middle of the Nevada desert means no traffic).

Not sure what happened, but I felt the passanger side wheel drop off the shoulder. I must have tried to correct and jumped out. I ended up facing the wrong way, dead center in the road (was this a sign not to go to Vegas?).

You were lucky. Could have easily flipped if you corrected.

 

Your very lucky. You didnt come out bad at all, while I know it hurts to see your baby scratched, nothing wrong with a little offroad pinstriping....just try to make it intentional offroading next time. Good luck!!