Hit—but no real damage

[Btm]

This week I was cleaning bugs out of my grille and saw this. Glad it hit low and not thru the windshield It looked like a bent piece of re- bar made the hole and dent. On my last trip there was many bridges narrowed to one lane for repairs. This is my reason for the ra-bar thought.


Btm

[Fluffywhitedogs]

Damn, that sucks. I had a similar hole in the front of my old 4Runner grill. Guy in front of me dropped a load of pallets. I managed to avoid most of them, but one shattered and a shard flew up. I was glad it didn’t keep going through my rad...

[pilotalso]

We had a piece of metal (about 8"x1" roundbar) fall off a truck in front of us.



Saw it pass under our RV.

Pretty much forgot about it.

Continued driving on the highway another 200 miles.



We were pulling into a rest area that required a stop at an intersection. As we attempted to pull away, we found the front drive wheels of the TOAD were LOCKED UP!



Turns out that the "piece of metal" had passed under the RV and bounced up into the transmission housing of our TOAD, puncturing the case and leaking out all of the transmission fluid.


We had no idea this had happened. Nothing in steering or increased tow resistance (until the transmission finally seized up at the stop sign).


$7000 later we had a new transmission installed in our Chevy Sonic. In talking with the mechanics, they stated they had never seen anything like it. The innards of the transmission had turned into a "molten ball of metal" then cooled enough at the stop sign to solidify and lock it up solid.

[Dodge Guy]

Ever see a bug pierce an AC condenser. At speed those larger ones are like rocks!

[Btm]

Originally Posted by pilotalso

We had a piece of metal (about 8"x1" roundbar) fall off a truck in front of us.

Wow. That was awful. I was sure lucky. After hearing your story and my close call I will watch a little closer for things in the road.

There was 10 screws holding in the lower grille. I took it off and pushed all the damage outward with needle nose pliers, then flattened it between 2 pieces of wood using a hammer. It repaired so well that you cannot see where the damage was unless I it pointed out.


Btm

[Chrisc40]

We swapped out the original RV sway bar for a beefier one. The mechanic did not tighten a nut down enough. It came loose out on the DC beltway and shot straight back taking out the front driver side tire on the toad. A few miles later someone waved and pointed to our back so we pulled off and what was left looked like a hairy donut. What a mess!

[kenandterry]

Originally Posted by Btm

Wow. That was awful. I was sure lucky. After hearing your story and my close call I will watch a little closer for things in the road.

There was 10 screws holding in the lower grille. I took it off and pushed all the damage outward with needle nose pliers, then flattened it between 2 pieces of wood using a hammer. It repaired so well that you cannot see where the damage was unless I it pointed out.


Btm

Excellent!!!!! A repair that really works.
Good on you

[H3OHIO]

Originally Posted by Btm

Wow. That was awful. I was sure lucky. After hearing your story and my close call I will watch a little closer for things in the road.

Btm

I've lost 2 tires due to debris in the road, the first one I wasn't even sure what I hit... The second one was completely un-avoidably, a car passing in the left lane hit a small trailer tire (rim & all) that someone lost. they flung it over into my lane, lost my front driver tire and almost my complete exhaust system. It Sucks, but as much as you look out for debris in the road, most of the time it's to late to do anything..

[NXR]

Originally Posted by H3OHIO

It sucks, but as much as you look out for debris in the road, most of the time it's to late to do anything.

Yeah, and you can only do a rapid lane change in these things once...

Ray

[AbdRahim]

I had just got mine back from factory repairs and forgot to lad an item I purchased at an RV furniture store. When I pulled in the lot, I heard something scraping. Upon investigation I found a 18 inch or so piece of rebar had pierced the cloroplalast rear storage bay and loved between the hole and the ground. Fortunately the repair was easy and I always carry gorilla tape. So I taped the hole to keep water out for the 500 mile drive home.

Thank God it did not pierce the gas tank or the holding tanks in the next bay.