Like the title says. Been having a clunk in the front end for a while, I just gave it a good look and the front ca mount bolt is moving through the cross member on the drivers side. I had a shop install these. Is there any fix for this? It has moved towards the rear at least 1/2 inch already. Explains why my fender could not be lined up right. I am going back there today. Not sure what resolution I may get.

How could they have caused this? Over tightening the CA bolts?

I have the worst luck with shops. They always **** something up. Body shops bend interior metal, break interior panels, get body dust all over the inside, don't re-install interior panels or speakers. Fail to properly install t-top seals. Botch Quarter panel repairs, cracking bondo/hideous fender flare, it had to go back to the shop 3 times and I had to pay for a rental each time. Crush my bumper after installing the new rear quarter. Dealers don't seal check diffs causing them to leak out after a year and force me to junk my car. Order the wrong y-pipe and destroy my cat with adapters. The list goes on. /rant

 

Only thing that could possibly be going on is, it needs to be tightened.

That has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with lining up fenders. You align those to the door, after the door is aligned to the body. No relationship to the suspension.

 

The front CA bolt is literally recessed in the cross member, part of the head is even wedged into the cross members metal. Looking between the CA and cross member I can see sheered metal protruding on the back side of the cross member and the CA is about a half inch away from the cross member. Man I wish my phone was not stolen I would be able to post a pic. Are these bolts supposed to have washers between the heads/nuts and the CA? If so they did not reinstall them.
In regards to the fender I should have said that the wheel rubs on the fender when turning left. Which would be explained by the CA having shifted.

Thanks for the response.

 

That sounds ... bad.

Without some GOOD DETAILED pics it's pretty hard to guess what's going on.

 

I just remembered my webcam. Im gonna take my laptop out there. I should have a pic up in about 10 mins or so.

 

I didnt have the best lighting so I hope this is good enough. The camera isnt the greatest either but its the best I have.

 

It's really hard to tell for sure, but, based on the 2nd pic, that looks like the car has been curbed HARD and the bracket thing has got broke off of the K-member.

The control arm doesn't look like it's even attached. It's just loosely associated with the car, and might fall off at any moment.

Looks like that needs to be parked and not driven until the K-member is replaced. That's an unguided missile pointed at the general public. I'm going to have to be in your town today; I believe I'll go to lunch down in Florence or something instead, just to be safe.

I don't believe I'd ever let that "shop" touch my car again, if it were mine. They should have never let that thing off the lift.

 

I am not sure what the k member or this bracket you speak of it. Well I think the k member is the triangle shaped bracket bolted to the cross member and the frame. This is intact as I was checking the bolts based on the bolts coming loose as a possible cause for the clunking.

As far as curbing it has not been curbed since I have owned the car, and this clunk has only been present since shortly after they installed the springs.
Hell if you live that close you are welcome to stop by and take a look. I live in independence now.

The car is not in the greatest shape but I take great care to maintain it and fix it when I am able.

 

K member = the big thing that goes across the car under the motor, by far the thickest stiffest most substantial piece of metal in the chassis, actually; the control arms bolt to the ends of it, the motor sits on top of it. 6 bolts hold it to the chassis.

The car's been curbed, wrecked, or SOMETHING that tore those brackets off the K-member. Might not be while you've had it; but it's happened nonetheless. The thing the control arm bolts to is DESTROYED beyond recovery, and if it finishes breaking off, you will have NO WAY WHATSOEVER to even PREDICT which way the car is going to go, let alone INFLUENCE it; and it'll probably take the brake system along with it at the same time. All you'll be is a passenger, and a mighty unhappy one at that.

I don't live there; I was just there today, is all. That's near the Cinci airport, right? There's a St Elizabeth hospital there? I think that's the place anyway.

Best thing to do at this point is to find a wrecked car, with damage that doesn't involve that part (rear-ended for example), and get the K-member out of it. Yer local buzzard might be sittin on a coupla prime specimens in their nest, if you can pry em loose before they devour em.

 

Well I just got the k-member welded and its pretty solid. I will get a new one at some point but there is no danger of it breaking loose at this point.
So it turns out what they did was one of two things or both. The front bolt needed to be cut off. So they installed another bolt. This bolt was either too small and allowed the CA to move and/or they did not tighten the bolt enough again allowing it to move.
The hole for the bolt in the k-member went from round to squarish oval and from 1/2 inch or so wide to about 5/8 or so. We welded a washer and nut to the k-member to prevent it from moving. My wheel is now much better aligned and no longer rubs on the fender near the door. I cant say it is perfect, but it is safe to drive now. We made 3 passes with a mig welder and some pretty heavy duty wire.

sofakingdom, thank you for your posts. I still am curious what the brackets you are referring to are. If they are the two brackets on both sides of the car, with 2 bolts into the frame and one into the k-member, than those a completely intact and undamaged. The only thing that was damaged was the bolt hole in the k-member. It was elongated like this 0 as opposed to o. The bottom of the bolt hole was relatively undamaged, it was pretty elongated on the top though.

 

These things all look pretty grim to me. They look like the bracket that's welded to the K-member that the bolt goes through; looks like it's cracked and split, on both sides.

Welding to that doesn't really work very well. Just because it "looks" "intact", isn't the same thing as "it's all good". The heat changes the properties of the metal. It WILL fail, sooner or later, right along the weld; maybe with no warning at all. Just, driving along like always, and all of a sudden, BOOM!!! your wheel and control arm are off in a field somewhere along with the brakes on that side and half the steering linkage, and your car is sliding on its belly down the road with no control (brakes or steering) whatsoever. Not a pretty sight. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be anywhere NEAR it when it happens (not "if", "when"), much less IN it.

There's things in life that no matter how much it costs or how much trouble or whatever, aren't worth the risk. This would be one of those things.

 

Im pretty sure that was a trick of the light, and the shitty camera. Here are some better shots of that area. I know the weld job looks like *** but it holds.

 

some more

 

Last batch.

 

sorry I lied.

This one shows where the issue is/was. The CA bolt was working its way through the k-member because the shop either put an undersized bolt in and or did not tighten the bolt enough so the arm was allowed to move.. We put a different bolt, an over sized nut on with a hardened washer, torqued it down and welded it to the k member. Its not going anywhere now. The weld isnt pretty but it will get the job done for a bit. I don't drive the car much anymore.