Hi all.

Was raining and lost traction with my stupid old rear tires in seattle. Anyways, the front gripped and I started to slow down BUT I still think I hit pretty hard. The rim wasnt broken, nor was it out of balance afterwards, but there was a dent on the rim of the wheel. The tire still held air the 2 hour trip home. The only evidence I can see other than the dented wheel is that I can see tire rub on the muffler heat shield. Thats a good 4 or 5 inches away from where the tire sits normally.

Anyways, the car seemed to drive fine, and what not, but a few things are weird.

1. My steering wheel has turned about 20 degrees to the right.
To go strait the wheel is already turning right.

2. The rear end seems either really stiff, or just really loud. Something is wrong. (obviously)

3. and last, the car handles like crap now. After replacing the rim with my spare I'm going to take it back to get realigned and tell me what is bent.

Other than that, anything else you guys think I should look at first?

Thanks
~Tweak

 

Jack it up and compare everything on the right rear with the left rear wheel. Ive hit some things pretty hard and never managed to bend a control arm, but im pretty sure you have trashed something back there. As for your wheel being turned 20 degrees, look for bent tie rods in the front. If you are lucky you bent the outer tie rods which are cheap and very easy to replace. If you are unlucky then you bent the inner tie rod which is considerably more work to replace.

 

i did the same thing i was being stupid and drifting on a street the tires caught some dirt and i slammed the rear drivers side tire into the curb....my wheel was turned like that and the car drove the same way, i had dented the rim and found that the lateral link was severely bent....

check it out i got a replacement for $30 from a junk yard and that was 2 years ago drives fine ever since.

 

One vote for lateral link. I did the same thing drifting around a corner and caught the curb, actually hard, it blew my output shaft in half and bent the lateral link. The worst part is that was my LSD diff and it happened 3 days before i raced at a local track. Good thing i had my old slip diff laying around still.

 

Wow ok, I looked under the car and see the bent lateral link. I'm lucky I have my old NA rear end sitting here to take it off of.

Thanks guys!

I'm still confused on why my steering wheel is turned to the right though. *confused*

 

Glad to see you figured it out. I had a slightly similar but different situation that ended up bending the lateral link, breaking the sway bar end link, and snapped the trailing arm.

 

WOW how hard did you hit!?! Geeze. Glad your still alive.

 

Haha thanks, I'm glad I'm alive too. It really wasn't that fast but when your rear whips back around the front after a 180 and you smack the freeway on-ramp wall you tend to break things. I forgot to mention that the two drivers side wheels were bent as well as needing new tires, a new front fender, new headlight assembly, front lower control arm is slightly bent (still very drivable), and the rear body panel still needs some repair.

It took me one month and $1000 in parts to get it mechanically sound and driving again. The mechanic's estimate was $7000 .

 

HA!!!! thats sweet, damn mechanic's these days eh?

 

Ok, well I got it all fixed! Only sucky part was I had to drop the exhaust. :\

I only had to replace that one bar thankfully. I went for a test drive and everything is great now! Steering wheel is strait, the rear suspension is soft again. I'm all smiles! You should have heard me gasp when I pulled the bent bar out of its holes and the whole wheel assembly popped out a good 2 or 3 inches. haha Scared me!

Anyways guys THANKS SO much for the help!

Here are a few pictures for anyone that hits a curb in the future!

Thanks
~Tweak

 

Aw man thats nothing. Later I'll upload a picture of my lateral link. Mine was bent about 45-50 degrees.

 

I had the same problems like you, but i didn't bap into a curb I rolled on my FC onto its side, so i compared everything from right to left.. my front tie rod was fubared so was my lateral link heres mine.. haha

 

I like how you labeled it bent .

 

mine was bent about as much as NoRotor, NoMotor's it was nasty but i didn't roll her so you take the cake there.

 

i've bent my control arm before like norotor's but much more severe (stupid snow drifting lol)

 

hmmm well I guess mine wasn't that bad thankfully.

I was in the mood to continue doing work on the 7 so I started pulling my turbo motor and am going to put in my 6 port NA turbo motor tomorrow. yay! woosssshh