mcnannay

Well this actually happened about two weeks ago now, but i finally brought her home today. She barely rolls, took three people to push her about 20ft on a flat surface. Had to use a winch to get it up on a dolly. Damage is yet to be completely inspected, but from what i can see for sure is that my lower control arm is pretty much squished. My front rim is scraped up good, and my rear a little bit. Basically what happened is I was screwing around while it was pouring rain, a lot of rain. Well I accelerated too much around a corner (not a blind one, i could see no oncoming cars, and theres no parking on the side of the street) so i started fishtailing and by the time i got control i was headed right into a curb...ouch. If you think thats the worst of it, wait til you see my next pics....





thats what i get for being stupid...im just glad nothing worse happened, lesson learned

Pele

iTrader: (28)

Yep. That'd be a control arm.

Easy to swap.

I really wish they made em from something other than stamped steel... Perhaps forged or cast... Something a bit more solid...

Then again, in minor things like hitting the curb or fender benders, you **** up other things like the frame rather than bending a cheap control arm.

mcnannay

yeah exactly, something has to absorb the impact, and luckily i have a parts car to easily fix this problem. I'm trying to get better pics of my other "damage" under the hood. But it already dark and my damn flash isn't working for some reason, (cheap camera).

mcnannay

k, here we go, this happened shortly after i hit the curb, i was able to barely drive it onto a side street to park it, and while i was trying the engine died and i lost all power, well as you can see, the battery flew forward and grounded the positive post on the battery to the underside of my hood, you can see the burn marks in the paint where it touched. The picture is one i took earlier and its out of focus, but pretty much the whole positive post is gone, and some of the terminal. The negative battery cable got so hot it melted off most of the insulation. I'm extremely lucky this didn't start a fire, its almost a miracle that it didn't flame up.

peejay

Replace the knuckle and control arm and maybe the crossmember, and get back on the road.

Sheesh, kids these days. Minor curb hit and they get all "ooh I need to take huge pics"... come back when you break spot welds

mcnannay

haha, sorry bout the huge pics, i usually edit em down in photoshop, but i recently reformatted, sorry!

wow 9000 posts ^ thats cool

Moonchopper

When I bought my car, it had been run into a curb too. But it was MUCH worse than that. Visual inspection told me it was the control arm that had been bent, but after replacing both control arms and getting the alignment checked, I found that it was more. Found out the spindle was bent after replacing the cartridges, swapped out top plates as well, and after I fixed all that, the cross caster was thrown off. It wasn't off before, but I'm not sure what's wrong with it.

bizarro

iTrader: (1)

same here...mine was like that when i got it...swapped out everything even the rear end...

mcnannay

i think my rear end is still good ( i really hope so, cause i put the lsd in about 4 months ago), i really didn't hit the rear too hard. The way the wheel is on the car now, it doesn't look bad, you could see it alot better about 60 degrees turned, then you can see how bad it really is. I hit the curb at around 25mph (the gauge was at around 45 but i was spinnin em good)

Actually i was more worried about the wiring, i really don't want to have to trace too many wires, its not hard for me to do, just really time consuming. I know exactly what to do to replace the chassis parts i bent/broke so thats no big deal. There is melted lead everywhere around the battery, its a mess, really glad there was no fire.

Moonchopper

lol Bizarro, my car is white too. You think it has something to do with the color of the car? :P

kiker14

iTrader: (1)

as some of the guys here know, I ran my first car (87 base RX-7) into a curb, and that ended it's life with me. I got a gsl-se and a station wagon for practicality. after hitting the curb (also rainy fast driving, wasn't really screwing around, I just hit a dry spot and it caught me off gaurd) anyway, after hitting it, I limped it home about a mile and it sat for about a year. I recently gave it to a friend (dan007 on the board) and he had to replace the steering box, cuz the impact had gone straight up the arms (or whatever the components are) leading to the steering box, and i managed to bust it all the way in there. hopefully for you it is an easier/cheaper fix!

Rx7carl

Check the tie rod adjuster, its probably bent as well. Sorry.

$100T2

iTrader: (1)

Deja vu! The same thing happened to mine when I was 18. Fookin' mechanic friend of my brothers charged me $1600 to fix it. I bent something on the rear end too, so he replace the whole rearend... To this day, I swear I got robbed.

mcnannay

hell yeah you got robbed! not many first gens are worth 1600 bucks to fix like that. It would be cheaper to find a decent shell for an engine swap. I dont expect to spend more than 100 bucks to fix it all, but again, i have a parts car

glad to see im not the only one thats done this...my dad actually said he did it to his SA back in '81...lol

Moonchopper

Yikes, right off the line, too. I bet that sucked.

vizion47

when i first got mine my friend crashed it into the curb,on the way home from the alignment shop too...anywayz i replaced the control arm and the tierods and stuff and the alignment is all meesed up i need to do a few more things

$100T2

iTrader: (1)

This was back in 1991... But seeing that the mechanic was a friend of my brothers, yeah, I got fucked.

skizzle84

EXACT SAME THING just happened to me a few nights ago in the rain. It's obvious my control arm is bent, and tie rod stuff needs replacement as well. I'm going to get it looked at tomorrow for all damages.

autopaul

http://bcrx7.com/modules.php?name=Fo...wtopic&t=12543

its a good thing this didnt happen to your battery, like what happened to this guys, youd have a pretty big mess to clean up, and ya it couldave caught fire pretty easily, well the good news is you can now replace it with an optima... apperently if a hole is accidentally punctured in an optima they seal themselves.. pretty cool, i guess if your too lazy for battery tiedowns...

too bad about the front end damage though,... id say count your losses everyone makes mistakes it couldave been allot worse...

ratboy

iTrader: (1)

I did the exact same thing to my first 7 back in high school. I dont drive fast in rain anymore...

rotor vs. piston

I ran into a ditch (sand in a turn) with my GSL-SE and bent by driversinde control are into a form that most would not reconize as a rx-7 arm. Got it pulled out and drove it home, ~20miles. The problem with that one is that I hit a log in the ditch and bent the frame of the car, door wouldn't shut right and the front bumper was pushed in and about an inch to the passenger side. I didn't have time to work on it so I sold it to a "friend" after I replaced the all of the bent and broken parts and I told exactly what was wrong with car and that I would not trust it for a DD due to engine inconsistantcy and the bent frame (I had a toyota truck as my backup) but he didn't listen, didn't pay the full amount and accused me of ******* HIM over. Friends, they're great. I guess I'm not adding much, just rather venting about something that I never vented about that happend over 4 years ago.