Ok here's the deal, last night the roads here were REAL bad yet i had to drive home in it. On the way home i was going around a turn and i had to apply the brakes in order to slow down a little bit, my wheels locked up and i slide for 30 feet right into the curb. i'd say i hit the curb at around 10-12 mph. oh btw i hit both tires on the passenger side, first the front hit then the back end trailed behind and hit hte curb also.

So i inspected the damage and it seemed to be ok, no body damage no flat tires etc just a little curb rash on my front right rim, no big deal i thought. so i start driving the car adn the alignment is all off, the steering wheel had to be turned 1/4 turn to the left, but other than that it pulled straight. now my question is after taking off the rim what should i look to be bent/broken? or should an alignment just fix the whole deal? and sorry for it being so long, thanks in advance

 

I'm pretty sure an alignment will fix it. I don't think you hit hard enough to bend or break anything. You can always take it in to get an alignment and they should be able to tell you if anything is bent or broken, just make sure they don't try to screw you and tell you all kinds of stuff is messed up.

 

well i would take it to a pepboys like the one i work at and we would check over all the suspention pieces to see if anything is bent/broken or other wise and then tell u whats up. becuz it could just be the alignment is off or something is bent and u cant really tell. and checkin the front end at a pepboys is free so u can do that and then if everything is fine then go with the alignment and an alignemnt from pepboys is 64.99, im not sure if its a couple of bucks more or less around u. depends on where the store is located.

 

Something is bent. If it was straight before, and you hit a curb, and now suddenly it's in the ozone, adjusting it isn't going to straighten out the bent part. All you'll end up with is a car that eats tires.

It's either the tie rod on that side, or the spindle.

Don't be too surprised to find that the rear axle on that side is also bent. The flange may no longer be perpendicular to the asle shaft, in which case the tire will wobble. It will show up as a tire-speed vibe that won't go away no matter how many times you have it balanced, or what wheels you put on it.

It takes surprisingly little to bend those parts by curbing a car that way.

 

More than likely you bent a tie rod. Not a biggie, just get it checked and replaced and an alignment. The rims cah be professionally polished to get that curb rash out. They can also true it if it has been bent.

Lon

 

Just get it checked out. If you were going 10 mph I dont think anything is broken. But I could be wrong. I dont know how fragile the front end is, maybe a tie rod is bent. I know the rear is pretty strong. Once when I was drifting my 90 RS I curbed my rear pass tire doing a 35 mph slide. Nothing broke except for a crack in the lip of the wheel (stock 15"). It was scary .... hoped up in the air and everything, but nothing broke and nothing bent. The rear is pretty strong. Front I dont know about.

 

yea its gettin checked out tomorrow hopefully its just a tie rod in the front and nothing in back. how much would it run to unbend the rear axle if it comes down to it? if its too much i'm just going in for a posi disc rear

 

keep us updated on what was wrong with the car...tie rod..etc. best of luck, tom

 

i hit a curb with my car once, and it turned out to be a ball-joint and the spindel...good thing i had spare spidels....lol. So i had the new spindal put on and a two new ball joints, it was fine except that the allignment is off a little bit, but i don't plan on fixing that untill i can get a new front end in there.

 

well i'm having it aligned today hoping that my luck is good and thats all it is but i doubt it, if it turns out to be more i'm gonna wait for spring break to come back from school and just lower the car since i was planning on doing that anyways, no better time than now. i'll keep it updated as i find out later today how bad it is

 

Yea Camaros are pretty damn strong when it comes to crashing and waht not. I have crashed many times in my drifting history and damaged pretty much nothing. I have jumped curbs (over them O_O!!), I once hit a curb going 65mph, hit walls, etc. And I havent damaged anything yet. haha...camaros are tanks.

 

well unfortunately as i had feared mine didn't fare as well as i had hoped. the guy called back and said he couldn't get the alignment to spec so its goin up on the lift tomorrow to diagnose the problem. if its going to be something extensive then i'm just gonna hold onto the car as is until i come home from school for spring break and do a front end rebuild with that MOOG rebuild kit from Spohn, any opinions on that?

 

good kit, but if its a bent tie rod your gonna need a tie rod as the kit only comes with new tie rod ends and not the actual tie rods.. same if you bent a spindle

 

more update, the guy at STS put it up on a lift today and couldn't find anything wrong so its goin to a collission shop who's gonna take a look at it tomorrow to see whtas up. everybody's guess is that its at least the spindle if not more, and even worse, somethign wrong with the backend too

 

good luck!! i hope its not too serious...

 

I did the same thing once, ripped out the y-pipe, bent the front two wheels so bad the tires blew out, ripped out the O2 sensor and threw the left front way out of adjustment, once I get the bushing kit that will get fixed.

 

eek luckily mine wasn't that bad, its still driveable but not safe at all at higher speeds. its getting checked out by the frame shop tomorrow and he'll let me kno what needs to be replaced, if the price is right for labor then i might just get the parts i want and have everything done all at once including lowering springs so we'll see. exhaust will just have to wait for another time of the year

 

Look at the k-member also. I bought a 91 RS that had been run off the road and hit a culvert. The k-member was bent, the spindle was bent, the a-arm was bent, the steering box was bent, and the front clip was shoved back into the unibody. These cars are not as strong as some think they are. It cost me $1000 to get the frame straightened and the k-member replaced, luckily, I had all the parts and the front end needed rebuilt also. Good luck on the diagnosis. :rockon:

 

ok i got it checked out by a frame shop and here's the deal. the passenger side knuckle is messsed up as well as the whole steering box assy. does anyone know how much just the parts would cost me, and its ok if the steering box is rebuilt. And also if not OEM stuff then can somebody recommend some better aftermarket products that i can have put in instead? thanks for the help guys

 

It depends on what is available in your area. I bought a whole parts car for $150.00 and took the parts i needed( front end and some interior pieces) then sold the rest of the car to another guy for $75.00. Keep your eyes open for cars on the side of the road or check with the local auto recyclers in your area. By knuckle i assume you are talking about the spindle, these do not wear out, they just bend, steering boxes, remanfactured, I have seen for $100.00. Keep your eyes open.:rockon:

 

If you bent the tie rod you most likly bent something else . the tie rod when put most of the force into the steering wheel yanking it out of your hands absorbing alot of the impact . If you get alignment done you can use to measurments to give you a genra idea what is bent in the suspension sys. the angles are called SAI ( steering axis inclanation) the other is IA (inlcuded angle ) I spun out in my car a while back . I found it was a good time to install new shocks struts and lowering springs . But i also SLAMMED a curb in my 97 s10 4x4 . In this accident i actually craked a weld from the lower control arm to the frame , broke 2 rims , eventually had to replace the hub , and 6 months after the accident 4 out 5 lug nuts broke off in a 45mph corner . Oh and it ate up 3 idler arms before i fixed the arm weld .

 

well from the looks of it the tie rod looks ok to me, but after putting in the new steering box and spindle i'll have it aligned and see whats up with the tie rod. if i have to take all that apart to fix a tie rod i'm definitely doing it all, a whole front end rebuild. as for the rims they looked fine just some curb rash on the front passenger side rim. thanks for all the input guys, i'll let you know as this all progresses.

 

That sucks... like I said though, all those parts bend easier than you might think when they get hit from the side that way. I've seen it happen too many times.

Hope you get it all straightened back out (pun intended)!! Just make sure you take care of everything that's damaged, if you don't you'll end up with a mystery tire-eater with peculiar vibrations and so on. Not much fun owning one of those.

 

hey bringing this back from the dead about when i hit the curb in my car. I just replaced the spindle and steering box and am going to do the struts and shocks tomorrow. The thing is that i'm gonna need a whole front end rebuild. I was considering the MOOG kit but its kind of pricey, is it worth it? or are there other kits that are just as good. and also i know that the MOOG kit doesn't come with tie rods, would it be ok to use my old ones or purchase new ones and what brand?

 

Jumped a curb once; back end slid out, I corrected it, and then the suspension unloaded and shot me the other way. Wound up bending the spindle, putting a bubble in the tire's sidewall, and leaving a tire mark on my rim. My alignment shop was able to align it... they said there was "just enough left". When I had my parts car, I swapped the spindle over from it... no biggie.

I'd love to know how the heck the alignment shop was able to figure out that my spindle was bent, though.

 

I too slid into a curb on a day which it rained earlier. I did it a mere 3 months after I got the car too.

I slid the front drivers side into the curb at what I thought was 40 MPH, but the guys who fixed it said it looked like I was going 65-70

I bent the rim badly, had to be replaced, destroyed the spindle, and the strut, ended up costing $700 to get her back to 100%. 4 years later, still runs perfect, so If I hit one that hard, you should be ok in the end.

 

well i already fixed it thats the thing, i replaced the spindle and the steering box, car's fine now i just gotta get it aligned but i'm also replacing the struts and shocks since i could compress the struts by hand when i was replacing the spindle so i figured it would be a good idea. the thing is that all my steering linkaging looks like its shot, does anyone think the MOOG kit is not worth it and would i be able to reuse my stock tie rods with that kit?

 

You don't want to re-use your stock tie rods. That's one of the things you will be replacing.

Your entire steering system consists of 6 parts that wear. They are: idler arm, center link, 2 inner tie rod ends, and 2 outer tie rod ends. There are exactly 2 more pieces: they are little sleeves that one inner and one outer tie rod end each screw into. They cost less to replace than you will have to pay somebody to unscrew the old parts out of them. Just get new ones.

So: to completely renew every single piece of your steering, takes a total of 8 pieces, as described above. That should be what's in the kit.

Each control arm has 2 bushings and one ball joint. So, 6 pieces will renew the entire suspension.

Struts and springs are .... struts and springs. They come separately.