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kjhansen
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Post subject: Front suspension damage
 Posted: Jan 21, 2012 - 08:52 PM
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Newbie
Joined: Mar 07, 2011
Posts: 20
Status: Offline
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Car: 1990 Mercury Topaz
Issue: My son slid the car on ice into a curb. The passenger side front tire/rim took the hit and transferred the shock to the lower control arm and into the frame where the lower control arm bolts in.
Note how the control arm is curved instead of straight.
Here is the front subframe just behind where the control arm bolts into it. It's not only twisted, if you look carefully you can see cracks in the bottom left and upper right. They are new and shiny cracks, so definitely caused by the impact.
So, is the car economically repairable? It's not a mint condition car. It has some floor, trunk and body rust, the A/C doesn't work, stuff like that. Probably a $700 car if the suspension wasn't damaged.
Keith |
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John92LX
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Post subject: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Jan 21, 2012 - 09:26 PM
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Veteran
Joined: Oct 01, 2001
Posts: 3522
Location: Dirty South, Mississippi
Status: Offline
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I'd find one with a bad engine/trans and in better shape (body wise), swap powertrains and go from there (in other words, make this one a "parts" car).
Otherwise, it's definantly not a do-it-yourself repair IMO, others may have a different view but I'd say you're looking at taking it to a body shop and getting them to give you an estimate. They'll usually do this for free, but the car would have to be towed or driven as it is there, which would prove difficult and/or costly. Honestly, I don't envy your position, man, good luck with it. |
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Proud owner of:
1996 Ford Aerostar XLT shorty, 3.0L Vulcan V-6, 4R44E.
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Ryan3179
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Post subject: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Jan 22, 2012 - 03:05 AM
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Newbie
Joined: Oct 18, 2010
Posts: 21
Status: Offline
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| i did similar damage like that to a 88 topaz my dad had i had to change the control arm and a mechanic freind of mine at the time bent the frame back straight but mine wasnt cracked it could be fixxed i think |
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PerformanceWithEconomy
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Post subject: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Jan 22, 2012 - 04:23 AM
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Webmaster
Joined: Dec 23, 2007
Posts: 2335
Location: South Suburbs of Chicago
Status: Offline
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Anything can be repaired, it's just a matter of whether or not you want to put forth the time, effort and most importantly, the money.
The car is probably driveable the way that it is. Believe me, I've seen cars with FAR worse damage than that on the road. Whether or not you WANT to drive it like that is another story. I'm sure that it will start to chew up tires sooner than it used to due to the front end being further out of alignment.
My thoughts based on your description are that you simply want to get the car back on the road, make it safe & reliable while keeping your costs down. With that in mind, here goes.
There is an old trick used by backyard mechanics that are trying to "rig" stuff just to get by. Right where the crack ends, you take and drill a small hole. This will typically stop the crack from spreading any further. Having said that, it will NOT keep the crack from splitting further apart, twisting, widening, etc... if it is under a lot of stress. Since this IS a high stress area, you could try drilling the hole(s) and then filling both the crack and the hole with a good clean weld on both sides. Many folks would stop there. That PROBABLY would get the job done, but.....
Before doing that though, I personally would try CAREFULLY "beating" that area back into place and get it as straight as is possible. Use a piece of 2 x 4 to distribute the load across the entire area rather than beating on the metal directly with a hammer. Once done, I would weld a beefy piece of flat stock across each crack AND along the entire length of the flats on each side. The metal is obviously already soft and fatigued, so adding reinforcement via stiffening plates or rods is definitely recommended. Obviously, you'll have to inspect all of the seams in that area to see if they need any further touch-up & reinforcement too. This should bring the alignment closer to where it needs to be, but probably won't be perfect. Then again, "close enough" is probably better than "not close at all" 
The control arms are ALL over the place on Ebay or are available from a local parts house. You don't need anything fancy or expensive, just something that isn't bent, twisted or cracked. Hope this helps.... Sean
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92 White / Red 2.3 MTX 130K miles, 93 Cayman Green / Grey 2.3 MTX 140K miles, 94 White / Grey 2.3 MTX 196K miles, 94 Red / Grey 2.3 ATX 70K miles, SouthSide Chicago
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PerformanceWithEconomy
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Post subject: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Jan 22, 2012 - 07:14 AM
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Webmaster
Joined: Dec 23, 2007
Posts: 2335
Location: South Suburbs of Chicago
Status: Offline
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One more thing. It looks like your water pump is seeping coolant out of the "weep hole". This is typically a sign that the pump itself is not in good shape and that your coolant system needs a thorough cleaning / flushing. I say this based on what appears to be green coolant dripping down and running down the axle shaft directly above the bend / twist in the control arm. I could be wrong, but figured that I would point this out "just in case". Sean
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_________________
92 White / Red 2.3 MTX 130K miles, 93 Cayman Green / Grey 2.3 MTX 140K miles, 94 White / Grey 2.3 MTX 196K miles, 94 Red / Grey 2.3 ATX 70K miles, SouthSide Chicago
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kjhansen
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Post subject: Re: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Jan 23, 2012 - 05:20 PM
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Newbie
Joined: Mar 07, 2011
Posts: 20
Status: Offline
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PerformanceWithEconomy wrote:
One more thing. It looks like your water pump is seeping coolant out of the "weep hole". This is typically a sign that the pump itself is not in good shape and that your coolant system needs a thorough cleaning / flushing. I say this based on what appears to be green coolant dripping down and running down the axle shaft directly above the bend / twist in the control arm. I could be wrong, but figured that I would point this out "just in case". Sean
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Wow, good eye. There is a coolant leak (already noted as the car had a puddle of coolant under it after the accident).
I'm wondering if the shock tower is torqued over, or if it's just stressing the strut and bending it to make it come that close to the the body...
BTW, the car is not drivable the way it is. The tire is running down the road at way too much of an angle and eventually will pop off the rim. You have to force the steering wheel 90 degrees over to the right to keep the car on the road... not good. I drove it home from the accident scene at 10-15mph. It wobbled and scrubbed too much to go faster. |
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kjhansen
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Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Jan 23, 2012 - 10:50 PM
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Newbie
Joined: Mar 07, 2011
Posts: 20
Status: Offline
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Well, it's gone. Just too much to do to put it right and in the end I would have still had a rusty old car. Junk yard came and picked it up for me and gave $300 for the privilege. It just wasn't worth the effort.
Keith |
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jglen490
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Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Jan 24, 2012 - 07:44 PM
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Posting Freak
Joined: Jul 13, 2007
Posts: 773
Location: Montgomery AL
Status: Offline
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A moment of silence.
Hopefully, there will be recyclable parts, and not just crusher action. |
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'92 Plymouth Grand Voyager, 3.3L - "Old Guy"
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'97 Ranger 3.0L - "Abe"
'05 Dodge caravan, 3.3L - "George"
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FallenAngel
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Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Front suspension damage
Posted: Apr 04, 2012 - 06:40 AM
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Newbie
Joined: Jun 02, 2009
Posts: 20
Location: Cambridge, Ontario
Status: Offline
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| (About 4 winters ago), my 4 banger had worse damage that in your pictures, but no coolant issue, passenger side strut was old and bit the dust after some black ice and a curb... (with winter tires)... same side control arm bent and frame in the same area as yours was bent and fully cracked, not just stress fractures... Took it to a shop that does ground up restorations, they straightened it up with amazing results, and welded in a small amount of extra metal and then rustproofed the area...it looks great now, too bad I'm not driving it at the moment... (although, for rust, the car had barely any for a 14 year old car at the time... in Ontario mind you, that is amazing in itself...and was only 75K miles at the time, so well worth the expense. $275 to fix the frame, Strut and coil was $50 and pretty much new condition off a topaz that was totalled due to minor rear end damage...control arm was $50 with tax, for the Moog one which comes with all the hardware, unlike some of the econo versions... so after gas and time, $400 to keep her alive... was it worth it? ONLY because she was in excellent shape already...plus I had just spent over $1K on parts during the summer previous to the accident... LOL Gotta love cars! |
_________________
Cayman Green 1994 Topaz GS Coupe 2.3L , ATX
95K Miles/152K KMs (Sitting in my driveway since November 2010, not by choice, but by necessity) Too many cars to insure at once...
Beige 1993 Topaz LS 3.0L Sedan , ATX (Daily Driver)
125K Miles/200K Kms as of March 2012
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