Bent front end?
 

I ran into a curb today a fun-with-understeer debacle, and now my front right wheel sits farther back (I.E. closer to the rear wheels) than the front does. The steering wheel also needs about 60 degrees left rotation for the car to track a straight line.

I took a look under the car and nothing looks like it's obviously bent. I'm wondering what usually bends first.

Do the "axles" in front tend to fail first? Tierods? Tie bars? Control arms? Mind you that the wheel was turned almost to the lock when the impact was imparted, so the force was applied to the bottom edge of the wheel, directed inward toward the rear of the oil pan area.

thanks in advance.

hah. I've had experience with that. Except I fixed someone elses muck-up when I bought my car. I'm willing to bet it's either the control arm or the spindel. (BTW, it's an IFS, so it has control arms instead of an axle.) The control arm should be completely straight, not curved at all. [Besides the curves in the metal itself.]

Actually, it might not be the control arm if you've already inspected it. Check the strut, the reverse-threaded nut in between the inner/outer tie-rod ends, the tension rod, or other things related to the steering. My steering wheel is still a bit off due to the strut cartridge or housing being bent [haven't figured out which yet], so your problem would indicate the strut as well.

That should allow you to park in handicapped spaces without getting a ration of shit from anyone.

Okay, good to hear. I slammed into the curb at about 5 or 6mph.

The car itself, on the limp home, seemed to still roll smoothly. There wasn't any "th-dump...th-dump...th-dump".

What are the chances that any part of the frame is bent? If I DID end up fixing this by replacing the control arms, ties, etc, would I likely enounter significant alignment problems? Would I need the chassis itself professionally straightened?

Thanks a lot guys!

could be the tie rod just needs adjusting. Then again you might've bent the control arm, or strut, or even a frame element.

What have we learned?

my 2nd gen has sat on my lawn for almost a full year now after a very similar encounter. ::sigh::

do what i did, just leave it how it is, and get a "new" 84 gsl-se ;)

Well I found the problem (control arm) and replaced it. Works great now.

yeah i bent my lower control on the 83 one time. i was gonna say its either that or the tiebar

The engineers at mazda specifically designed the control arm to be much weaker than any other suspension component. The shock moves relatively freely, the tiebar has lots of play due to the rubber bushings... the only things that dont move are the steering linkage and the control arm. The steering linkage has a pre-bend in it, so it basiclaly will fail first there if failure is predicted to occur. However, in my case, the hit moved through the "rack" and turned both wheels, so bending in the steering was minimal and could be fixed with an alignment. Thus, the only thing that really bent significantly was the control arm. In laymen's terms, it got f'd.

Well, I went to go get my car aligned after getting new tires, and the mechanic there said that he thought it was the top plate that was bent. I'm getting ready to replace the strut cartridge/plate in mine, so I'll let you know what I find out.

I did the same thing in my thunderbird, except I had mucho oversteer and slid right towards the damn sewer drain and bent the subframe ($700) and the labor to fix it ($1100) was a bit out there, thank god for my stepdad, he did it in two hours, most mechanics take days to fix that.

- Tech

Well, I know what's wrong with it now. Took the struts off and after taking the rotors off of them, I IMMEDIATELY noticed the problem: The spindel is majorly fucked up. Well, maybe not that bad, but it is DEFINITELY bent. I've already got new KYB Gas Pressurized cartridges, so I'm going to swap those into the parts-car housings and throw those on the '82 and keep my fingers crossed.

Does anyone know which direction the arrows should be pointing when installing the struts? I'm going to get the car aligned directly after I finish installing the struts, but I just want to get it aligned the best I can before driving it anywhere.

Update:

turns out two things were bent. The control arm and the spindle. I just replaced the control arm.. .drove the car for about 500 miles, and then I noticed tire wear on the outer half of the tire, indicating positive camber. Anyway, I measured the distance from the top of the tire to the shock on both the left and right sides, and sure enough... on the bent end, the distance was greater, which agrees with my hypothesis that the bent end got extra positive camber. Regardless, I have to replace the shock/spindle combonation now to truly fix the problem.

Is there any way to separate the spindle from the bottom end of the shock, or do they only come as a one-piece unit?

To answer your question, the arrow points toward the centerline of the car, so it should point inwards (according to the haynes manual and general industry convention).

The spindle and strut are one piece...

I did the same thing on my 7 a few years back, slid in the snow avoiding some asshole who was driving on my side of the road.

Bent the control arm nicely.

Then a few months later, I was speeding through traffic (Dumbass move) locked up the brakes, and slid sideways into the back of a '96 Corolla. Completely fucked the same control arm and broke the tie rod in two.

Replaced the tie rod and control arm and it was drivable again.

I have a full SE suspension ready to go under the car. I hate apartments, I need a garage with a bedroom.

Anybody got a spare right front shock?