peoples experiences in damaging front LCA'S advice/thoughts

Wheels, Suspension, Brakes & Tyres questions and answers

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Dorimx5
Driver
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 8:31 pm

peoples experiences in damaging front LCA'S advice/thoughts

Postby Dorimx5 » Tue May 17, 2011 11:54 am

hey there i was recently in a accident where i under steered and locked up my brakes into a gutter at about 20- 25kph. Now i completely destroyed my Front left LCA and replaced it with a second hand straight one it made my wheel sit straight again i also bent my sway bar link but nothing else from what i can see, i adjusted both centric bolts either side of the LCA identically the same as the other side and it made the car drive a bit better as it was pulling to the left and had the steering wheel turned about 8-12 degrees clockwise to drive straight , however now that i put my stock wheels back on when i drive now the car pulls to the right fairly hard now assuming nothing else is bent can this be fixed via a wheel alignment, i don't want to do radical adjustments to one side to make it drive straight as i want it to be roughly close to the same either side. Anyway has anyone been in the same position and had to replace anything else to fix this problem? could it be a bent tie rod or tie rod end? chassis mounts seem fairly straight!

thanks in advance! :)

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hks_kansei
Speed Racer
Posts: 6154
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:43 am
Vehicle: NB8A
Location: Victoria

Re: peoples experiences in damaging front LCA'S advice/thoug

Postby hks_kansei » Tue May 17, 2011 12:29 pm

you will need an alignment.

it's also possible that it has damaged the tie rod, an old Laser that my dad and I fixed up had a similar accident at some point and to the naked eye the tie rod seemed fine, but once we removed it and peeled back the dust boot it was quite bent.

so check that, and also check the upper control arm as well, there's no guarantee that it didn't shift in the crash as well.


there could be any number of things bent, so just make sure to look very carefully at everything and see if there's any bends/cracks.


after that get an alignment, if they have issues with getting it aligned it may also indicate something bent/shifted.
1999 Mazda MX5 - 1989 Honda CT110 (for sale) - 1994 Mazda 626 wagon (GF's)


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