well my little incident from before, it turns out the ball joint where the knuckle meets the upper control arm was the only VISIBLE damage. banged that back into place. adjusted the toe setting by eye just so i could drive my car straight.

its in the alignment shop now. one of my friends (technician) says that with the alignment readings he can get a good idea of what is actually bent. if its the upper control arm, kunckle, tie rod, strut, etc. when he was over my house yesterday he asked to pop the hood. i was thinking "why the hell would he want to do that?" turns out, when i did he uncovered that the strut tower was ripped. i looked at it and it was never like that before. he said there might be frame damage.

sigh

 

yikes.. lower control arm is bent according to the alignment shop. once that is fixed then they can get it on the alignment machine and determine if there are other problems. okie dokie