Hi guys. It's with a heavy heart that I ask for your advice.
My C5 had a glitch this weekend with the part that goes between the driver's seat and steering wheel . . . I spun the car at the top of 2nd gear and had to go both feet in. The right rear wheel contacted a 3-4" curb, taking a chunk out of the lip of the rim. I'm not sure how much speed I had scrubbed by the time I contacted the curb, but the tire is still holding air.
Here's what I've observed:
1) if I center the steering wheel, I believe the car drifts to the right - I say "believe" because there weren't any perfectly flat roads on the way home. The car seems straight enough such that on portions of road that were crowned toward the left, the car would drift to the left.
2) the rear wheel has less negative camber in it than it did before - it was about -1.4 degrees, but it looks to be about 0 degrees now;
3) the eccentric adjuster does not appear to have moved - it wasn't marked, but it's darned close to the full negative adjustment range;
4) the subframe that the lower control arm mounts to does not appear to have shifted - judging by the looks of where the subframe has been machined, to accept the washers / bolts that attach it to the frame, it appears as if the subframe is as far to the passenger side of the car as it can be - it seems to me that, if the subframe shifted from the impact, it should have shifted toward the driver's side of the car;
5) the upper control arm pickup points do not appear to be distorted, but beyond looking for wrinkled frame rails, I'm not sure what else I should be looking for;
6) the wheel bearing still seems tight when I checked for play by grasping the tire at 3 o'clock/9 o'clock and 12 o'clock/6 o'clock and rocking it back and forth;
7) there are no contact marks on any of the frame or any of the suspension pieces - it appears that only the wheel made contact with the curb.
Questions:
Is there anything else that I can look for to determine if the frame is bent? I think that the knuckle or lower control arm is bent since the eccentric adjuster stayed put but there's no negative camber left - does this make sense? What else should I look for? Can you guys give me a plan of attack to determine what the extent of the damage is?
Any off course excursion can result in suspension damage.
The most common problem on the C4, C5 & C6 is bent A-Arms which can be almost imperceptable to see with the naked eye. In fact most body shops after an accident and most alignment shops just assume the A-Arms are straight and true and try to fix the problem by realigning.
I have even seen some unscrupulous shops use eccentric bushings and/or bolts and elongating suspension mounting holes to bring the alignment into spec. This is the easy and cheap way out. This can bring out unwanted suspension harmonics at high speed, during braking, or acceleration; even with the alignment "returned" to Spec. Just because the alignment CAN be brought into spec doesn't mean the car will subsequently handle properly with bent suspension pieces.
The proper fix is to remove the A-Arms and compare them to new and straight units using a straiight edge and/or a weld table as a jig to check for trueness. If an A-Arm is found to be bent, even the slightest, destroy it and replace it.
The other componants that can bend are the spindel/upright, swaybar and endlinks, shock shafts and shock mounts. Rarely the toe/steering rods will bend but usually they are high enough tensile steel that if they do get flexed they return to near straightness.
Very rarely is the frame bent in an off couse excursion; more likely in a contact accident with another car, wall or ARMCO. The frame can be measured to see if it is bent by placing it on an alignment rack and taking measurements from specific drop down points
IF the frame is found to be bent, and it will be fairly obvious that it is, then it can be straightened (NOTE at this point I have no comment concerning the Aluminum framed C6 Z06 concerning straightening the frame). The common mistake here is to reuse any of the suspension componants no matter how good they look. For some reason people think that the small Aluminum parts can survive when a steel frame is bent. Not so; they then all become suspect. Even if a car is hit hard only on one side; the opposite side componants become suspect as well.
In your specific case, by hitting the curb hard enough to take a chiunk out of the wheel I would start by removing & checking both upper and lower A-Arms on the effected side and then the opposite side. If this was a front wheel that was damaged I wouldn't worry about the rears unless an alignment anomoly showed up. BTW the wheel is toast as well.
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No air tools required. The Kent Moore ball joint separators that the book calls for make your life easier, but aren't required. You will need a T55 Torx bit & sears doesn't carry them any more. I got mine through snapon, but whatever works.
If you find your old arms are bent, do us all a favor and cut them. No sense them somehow magically getting back into a car.
Depends on how hard the car was hit. The frame, sub frame and transverse spring transfer those forces to the other side as well.
I'm not saying they will be bent but they should be checked as well. The telltale sign is if the alignment specs are different than when it was originally set up.
Gotcha. So should I take the car in to the last place that I had it aligned and see where the alignment is before I start disassembling anything? Thanks again!
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