changknows

I bought a 93 civic hatch and everything seemed pretty good, engine was rebuilt, tranny was smooth, and ive been driving for like a week. I always thought that the rear tires looked weird like they had positive camber. I thought it was bent lca's and since blox are dirt cheap i thought id order em but first i took a peak under the car and it looks like this...

im pretty sure lower arm bracket is the name of the bent piece but please correct me if im wrong. more importantly how do i fix this? i don't weld. the bolt is sticking out because i partially unscrewed it.

dave181

how does ur tire look can u post pics cause my driver side tire looks slanted if urs r to then mines also bent lol

PhatFactory

You can try heating it up and hitting it back. Take off the control arm 1st tho.

changknows

ill take a picture tomorrow its pretty dark now. What should i heat it up with? and how hot? sorry im a newb to all this.

dave181

dont feel bad being a noob im one to but every1s a noob at first ive learnd alot from asking ? and geting my hands dirty good luck man

changknows

bump

driveslow

subscribed, I want to know how this pans out.

danomatic93

If you are going to reuse that piece, I would suggest that once it's in place that you reinforce it as the metal will be weaker (fatigued) than it should be. Good luck.

changknows

Took out the lca which was a b*tch since it was stuck inside the bracket, and sort of half took off the exhaust because i couldnt get one of the rubber things off and it didn't matter much.

Went to Home Depot and got a basic torch kit, propylene and oxygene, package even said it was good for welding/cutting and came with 5 rods. Tried to soften the metal and the flame kept going out since im outdoors (i live in apt. no garage...). Kind of worried about the proximity to the gas tank but the flame doesn't hit it directly and i was told boiling gas is nothing to worry about...just the fumes that might come out the gas cap.

Ill update with some pictures when I'm finished.

Im thinking I'll pick up an ASR subframe reinforcement to help with the fatigue and possibly get some sheet metal welded on to it down the road. Only problem is Im not gonna be able to make it as perfectly straight as it should be.

hmtcrxsir

good God! how that managed to happen? hit a pot hole?

Trivic

still waiting for that pic....

driveslow

please post some after pix. Can you just cut and weld an identical piece from another civic? maybe hitup the junk yard?

dave181

im also waiting on more pics

changknows

Sorry guys I didn't snap any pics, I was too disheartened that heating them up and bending them didn't work. The torch that I got was too weak so $50 down the drain...my neighbor let me borrow his torch with mapp gas and it seemed to do the trick.

I managed to bend the rear side of the bracket but the front side was punched in by the lca rather than bent so I couldn't do anything about it. So I just bent the rear side back into the position it was before...So basically I spent some money and a bunch of time to weaken (maybe severely?) the bracket that was bent and is still bent...

I think I'll do as drive slow says and cut and weld the same part from another civic...I'll update the thread whenever I get to it

To hmtcrxsir, the car came like this and I just figured it out. I'm feelin pretty ripped off right now...I paid $1700 for this car and theres a gang of other little problems that bother the sh*t outa me. Only upside is the engine was rebuilt bout 80k miles ago.

btw anyone in here weld? and live in Washington state? or possibly have some junk civic theyd let me strip? lol

PhatFactory

I'm sorry it didn't work for you bro. I thought it would work by heating it up. Didn't mean to mislead you or waste your time bro. And where the picture after the heat up or weld?

driveslow

good luck man. If you can post more pics at different angles, maybe the real experts on this forum will chime in with the best way to resolve this problem. If the best way is to cut and weld a new piece, you might be able to kill 2 birds with one stone and use an ASR brace for support.

hmtcrxsir

i remember a buddy of mine had the same problem with his civic hatch. he brought the car to alot of body shops to ask to use their frame straightening machine. many of them told him that his civic is a complete lost. but he managed to find a shop that manages to pull it out far out enough to add a brace to it. it looks like the car been into an accident. i guess this teaches us all a lesson to check every little detail of the car before buying a used car. Yeah sounds like cutting and welding is your only choice now, theres tons of civics and integra here at the junkyard. I wonder what can be used to cut off a piece because that part of the frame is hard.