legacycentral bbs

Ever since my accident my right rear wheel has been towed in about 15 degrees. It does not wobble as I drive so I know that it wasn't the rim that's bent. So my question is what is bent that would keep the wheel in like that? Took the hub off and everything looks ok but I cant say what ok is since I never really looked when it was. Sway bar and lateral links would be my guess, Id think the trailing arm would have enough free play in its design to deal with the side to side motion that I gave it in the crash but if its twisted maybe then its messed up. If the strut is bent and doesn't come down all the way would that cause the wheel to tow in? Also the bolt that was through the lower control arm and the lateral link is slightly bent. I'm going to have to find a body shop that's willing to see if its fixable due the frame damage. Would it be a bad idea to drive it to the body shop with the latter link or lower control arm disconnected to try and save the wheel from uneven wear or should just put the spare on when I put it all back together and let it be worn.

I know I have way too many question there that don't make a whole lot a sense but if anyone could just answer a few maybe it might help me out just enough. I sell my fukin kidney to save this car.

I'd just replace both lateral links, and the trailing arm as well. You could probably get all three for under $50.


arm yourself with a 1/2" breaker bar and large metric sockets. the bolts are large and quite tight. bathing them in liberal amounts of penetrant first for a few days will help a lot.

you should be able to see bends in the lateral links very easily, they should be dead straight bars (92-94)

Word. IIRC, the longass bolts on the lat links should be around 19mm. Or maybe it's 21mm? One of those, probably the former. Be sure to grab the nut on the other side, otherwise you won't get anywhere.. If the pieces are shot, it doesn't matter if you leave the wheel on. . . You'll still get uneven tire wear.

it is 19mm because that's the largest size I have for box-end wrenches. If you put a box end on the head side of the long bolt, you can rest it up against the hub or underbody so you don't have to hold it, then use the 19mm socket and breaker bar on the nut.

Yeah I've got the hub off already. Now I'm thinking it might be the strut or the hub itself that's bent. What do you guy think would bend first?

The lateral links.

The hub and strut are both fairly stout. The strut would have to TWIST to toe out a wheel, and with the hub, you'd have to bend the living shit out of a big cast peice.

The lateral links are fairly prone to damage, and to bend one isn't uncommon.

Definitely the strut or the Knuckle of the hub that is connected to the strut is bent. It gives about a fifteen-degree tow in at the bottom of the wheel as soon as I put the two bolts through the strut. No matter how hard I push or pull trying to get the hub at or about 90 it aint happening with both bolts in there. The laterals may be adding a few degrees more of a tow in but it starts with the knuckle of the hub where it connects to the strut. I doubt the perch that the strut is mounted to would cause anything like this but I could be wrong.

Finally got around to ordering the Knuckle hub assembly today form a place called sunrise foreign. Found them thru the net hopefully they wont mess up and get me the wrong part but with my luck who knows. They only wanted 45$ for it, but that doesn't include S&H (thing weighs about 25lbs). Hopefully when I get the knuckle (assuming its the right one) Ill be able to get RR wheel flat enough to dive it to a body shop.

Got the knuckle knee hub assembly thing or whatever you want to call it, today. It isn't stamped with the same number but looks identical. The part that connects to the strut is bent. When I compared the measurements of mine to the salvage yard one, the salvage yard one is about a quarter inch shy of mine. That should account for a large amount of the towed in part of the wheel, hopefully.

My Dad and I are going to be putting it back together tomorrow. When we were taking the knuckle off of the car we had to remove the abs speed sensor and it was kind of stuck in the knuckle. In the process of removing it, my dad managed to punch two holes in it with a screw driver. Is the abs sensor fubar? The knuckle I got came with an abs sensor but it looks like it got just ripped off of where ever it was connected, would it be ok if I swap them?

Finally got it all back together. The wheel sits perfectly at 90 degrees. Didn't ever swap out the abs speed sensor, im hoping it still works.

The right rear is still towed in by about a degree and a half. Took it to an alignment shop to see if they could find out what was bent, but of course the guy couldn't tell us. Though he did say everything else looked good. So its either we bought an other bent knuckle hub assembly from the internet salvage yard or its the bent bolt that connects the lateral links to the hub or the strut it self.

Cool just got the rear kyb agx's. I got the bolt a couple of weeks ago, but decieded to wait till I had the struts to put it all back together.

Any progress with this?

I have some wacked out amber with my right rear.

No man I'm the worst procrastinator ever and besides do you have any idea how much it’s been rain/slush/snowing over here? I'm a warm weather orientated mechanic.

I've also been saving up for a nice digital camera so I can take pics to document the whole reconstruction process here.