Well A while back i got into a little accident. Long story short i slid off the road upstate when it was snowing and hit a curb . The accident caused my wheel to sit in the back of the wheel well. i had to change the inner and outer tie rod ends, rack n pinion, cross member, lower control arm, spindle, and upper control arm... well after all of that my drivers side wheel is not centered in the wheel well... it sits in the back of the wheel well still .. i want to know if there is any adjustments that can be done to center it. i had the chassis looked at and they said it wasnt bent or anything... car drives straight doesnt pull to the side at all.


Modified by SexyEJ8 at 11:51 AM 7/3/2008

 

bump...

 

anybody know what i can do to straighten this ?

 

It seems like you replaced everything except the radius rods, but that wouldn't be it. because you would see any imperfections in that part itself (bent, etc.), unless something is installed improperly (washers, bushings, symmetrical,etc). The lower control arm however, has been known to "look good" after a crash, but is usually slightly bent. Replace your lower control arm, and that should do it, if all else is as good as you say....good luck.....

 

i did change the lower control arm...

 

my bad, reading comprehension owns me... ok, you might check that the placement of
the radius rod hardware that attaches to the front crossmember is equal on both sides.....btw, is your problem on both sides or just one? and how much are we talking about? pics?.......you can use shims (washers) on the radius rods to make one side match the length of the other......good luck.....JB

 

Perhaps the front subframe has been pushed back? This would probably mean the chassis itself is damaged. It would also mean you had unequal caster side to side (and wheelbase).

 

its just on the driver side..

 

you need to have it put on an alignment rack.......the truth will be in the numbers. sounds like something is severly bent.....

 

the cross member that got put back on was a new one. if the chassis was bent all the bolt holes wouldn't line up correctly right? the only thing i didnt cahnge yet is the stabilizer bar in the front. But do you think that it could be bent and causing the wheel to sit back in the wheel well when its bolted on?

 

yes, since the "sway" bar is connected to the lower control arm, it could be pushing on the lca, causing it to be located improperly in the wheel well....keep trying.....JB

 

iight thanks or the help guys... im going to take a look at everything in the morning and see whats up with it

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SexyEJ8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">its just on the driver side.. </TD></TR></TABLE>
It could be pushed back just on one side. it would actually be the chassis that was 'foreshortened' on one side.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SexyEJ8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the cross member that got put back on was a new one. if the chassis was bent all the bolt holes wouldn't line up correctly right? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Not necessarily. Only if the tolerance between the subframe holes and bolts were quite tight, if there is any looseness of fit between them then the subframe may be able to move longitudinally on one side a fair bit before the 'slack' is taken up on the other side.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SexyEJ8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the only thing i didnt cahnge yet is the stabilizer bar in the front. But do you think that it could be bent and causing the wheel to sit back in the wheel well when its bolted on? </TD></TR></TABLE>

No way. The vertical ARB ("stabilizer") links allow a fair degree of latitude in this department, and even if they didn't the ARB is a lot less rigid than the rest of the suspension, i.e. the ARB would flex substantially well before it caused any significant misalignment in other suspension components (that is if you could even fit it in such a hypothetical instance).

 

You say the steering doesn't pull, but does it feel different turning one way vs the other? If it does it may be quite a subtle difference, I had this problem on my CB7 caused by unequal caster (and you probably have unequal caster if the wheel is back in one well but not the other).

The steering felt slightly lighter when turning left vs right, and you could feel it even when driving in a straight line even though on a perfectly flat road it didn't actually pull if I took my hands off the wheel (little corrections to the left felt softer than little corrections to the right).

Taking caster out of the right side fixed the problem. I do have a lot of caster dialled into my car (highly recommended!), it may be that with less caster this might not be so 'feelable'...?

 

have a body shop put it on a frame machine, and measure the wheel base on each side and compare. then measure all the rest of the pionts on the frame machine measurment chart/printout until you determine whats bent. if you have replaced all of the front suspension and crossmember then the only thing left is subframe. which can be pulled on the frame machine.