Suspension damage

[chriswells78]

I went wheeling Saturday and sustained some suspension damage among other things. When the steering wheel is straight, the passenger side wheel is kicked out to the right and the wheel is completely off camber. (top is leaning out.) I took the wheel off to inspect everything but nothing looks really out of place. The upper ball joint looks a bit bent but it's hard to tell since it is a movable joint. Any ideas before I take this to an alignment shop and spend big money on something stupid?

 

[gijoecam]

Pics would help, but I suspect either it yanked the upper ball joint/control arm out of whack, bent the knuckle, or both.

Let us know what they find (and post some pics!!)

-Joe

 

[chriswells78]

Yeah, I need to get a pic, That's the problem though, nothing but the ball joint really looks bent. Can the knuckle really bend? I figured with them being cast in combination with it being cold, it would have just broken.

Edit, you can kind of see how bad its toe'd here.

 

[gijoecam]

They're cast, but they're a lot more ductile than you would believe... I've seen pics on here of bent ones before.

The easiest way to tell: Put the front end on stands, pull both wheels off and take pics of both sides from the front straight-on, sides, and top, and compare all six images on a split screen (or dual monitors)... Makes it easy to pick out the problems a lot of times.

 

[offroadjosh]

What kind of wheeling? Jumps?.. Hard Landings? Slid in to anything hard with the front end?

Any thing happen that might have caused this.. that you remember?


Josh

 

[chriswells78]

I'm pretty sure it happened in the creek crossing that nobody could get across. The far bank was an ice shelf that I hit pretty hard so that I could get my front end up on it. Then I got high centered on that shelf. I had to get pushed back off of it.

 

[chriswells78]

Pics

video, I think when I hit the shelf hard in my second attempt is when I bent it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Hk...ad.php?t=5711&page=24&feature=player_embedded

 

[gijoecam]

Maybe it's just me, but the only thing that looks weird there to me is the head of the tie rod... that looks tweaked... but nothing jumps out at me as being too far out of whack...

 

[Turdle]

The whole bottom of that spindle -knuckle is tweeked left--

 

[Turdle]

well, after looking at a cleaned off set of spindles--it isn't bent that bad at all --the curve at the bottom is present on these also.

inner tie rod bent?

spin it and see if the tire moves in and out--

 

[Four0Sport]

i thought the bottom of the spindle was bent too.. you can see it pushed into the dust shield

 

[IZwack]

Compare this knuckle to the other -- I bent one before and took a bit of comparing between the two sides to figure out it was the knuckle. So get the front up in the air, remove both tires, and compare.

 

[chriswells78]

I'm really thinking it's a combination of the knuckle and the lower ball joint.



This incident has got me really thinking hard about an SAS.

 

[Cobraguy]

If you hit hard enough to bend/damage components like that, it makes me wonder what else is stressed there that you can't see. If this were mine, I would be very tempted to replace the spindle, ball joints, and tie rods. Just to be safe. I might even be tempted to replace the entire lower control arm. But I am a worrier about things like this. I would always be wondering what was damaged and going to break when I was headed down the highway, or about 30 miles into the back country somewhere.

 

[chriswells78]

OK, got it all torn down, the control arm is out, the knuckle kinda looks bent compared to the new one but it's still hard to tell. I ordered a new lower ball joint, new upper ball joint and arm, I'm thinking about going to the yard and seeing if I can get another lower control arm just to be safe.

I cannot get the top of the upper arm off, the TM headers get in the way of removing the front bolt and the rear won't come all the way out either. I can't figure out how to get the bushings out of the lower either, I beat the center pin out of one but the other wont' budge. I ordered new bushings, so what is the trick? I also ordered a new tie rod end and I'm going to install it.

On another note, I have the old tie rod ends from my mustang (I installed a Steeda bump steer kit.) The mustang tie rod end is a bit longer but the threads are the same so it looks like the bump steer kit would work for the street guys if they so desired to use it.

 

[Turdle]

Yeah-I ran into the header thing also--

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221522&highlight=header

Jamie said just to cut it and install the new bolts backwards--

but that is an expensive set of bolts--

 

[chriswells78]

Yeah, I bought a similar set when I installed the new K member in the mustang, they were like $5 each plus nuts and washers.

 

[chriswells78]

Well, its all back together, It must have been the knuckle, even though I couldn't tell it was bent by comparing it to the new one. New ball joints, new lower arm bushings, new tie rod end and it's all straight again. I need to make a trip to the alignment shop. I need to do the drivers side control arm bushings, the passenger side now sits slightly higher than the drivers, maybe it will settle down after some driving.

 

[Premier]

glad to hear you got it all straightened out

 

[Cobraguy]

I need to do the drivers side control arm bushings, the passenger side now sits slightly higher than the drivers, maybe it will settle down after some driving.

By any chance did you tighten the control arms with the suspension unloaded? That can cause that. When you tighten control arms, you should have the weight on the vehicle and at normal "rest". Otherwise, they can bind and you get your situation.