So i bent up my rear lower control arm wheelin' this afternoon...just wondering what the immediate ill effects are and how bad is it for alignment etc. i didnt feel any sort of tracking or anything like that on the hwy drive home...so im guessing its ok for now?

ive got a 200km (about 120mi) drive (each way) to do on monday. should i be worried about this? i probably wont get a chance to replace it for a week or so...

heres a pic:





...am i safe for the time being?

 

Ouch... I cant see how it could drive straight in that shape. Any vibrations?

To replace it go hit up Steve at sonoransteel.com, he has some beefy DOM replacements with RE joints in them.

 

How'd you do that?

Well the distance between the two mounts now is slightly shorter. Im sure that your rear axle is now pointed towards the drivers side at a slight angle. You probably wont feel much of a difference, just hopefully your tires wont feel it either.

 

nope..no vibrations. i havent had any problems whatsoever with my FZJ80 wheels & 285 MT/R's. smooth as silk, and balanced so perfectly. it drives straigt as it used to...thats why i was so surprised...maybe it was just slightly tweaked, but not so much so to throw things completely off...

thanks for the tip on the sonoran lca's..those look meaty!

not quite sure how. i think my tire slid off a rock ledge passenger side and BAM!. right on the LCA. yeah i figure it'd be skewed a bit, luckily i havent noticed anything weird back there yet. ill take it for another drive tomorrow. hopefully itll hold up till i can get it replaced...*crosses fingers*

thanks

 

haha those look like mine. Except urs is a bit more extreme. I"m keeping watch of my tires cuz i don't have the money to buy Steve's stuff, although his look awesome.

I haven't had any vibrations (at least not more than normal )

And my tires still look like their wearing even. BUt ur bend is more extreme than mine

 

d0ubledown,
thats fine, mine (drivers side) is just like that, has been that way for about 2 years now, drives straight, very straight, just rotate your tires every 6K miles it you wont notice a thing.... dont worry about it.

 

Both of my rear's are like that... I'm pretty sure I did mine bouncing off of a log quite a while ago - 18 months, 2 years... something like that. I did notice anything bad from it immediately, but then I didn't really notice they were bent until maybe 9 months ago. I have a lot of interesting shakes and handling issues these days.

The physics of the issue says that if only one side is bent, then that side of the axle will be leading the other and will cause tirewear issues, "crabbing" down the road and handling trouble. If both side are bent _exactly_ the same, then technically all you've done is move the center point of the rear axle 1/8"-1/4"...

They _should_ be replaced... I have a set waiting to go in, I just haven't done it.

 

*whew*...thanks guys. for a minute there, i thought i was gonna have to dump even more money into fixing things...

at least i know it aint gonna snap on me...

btw, anyone know why nobodys made kinked lower arms for more clearance? ive seen them on an Nth degree kit, for TJ's n stuff. looks like it'll add a bit of clearance...if just not for the 'cool' factor..haha.

 

Strength vs. cost is a big reason. Making those anything but straight will weaken the system, which means that you'd have to move to a higher strength steel and/or gussets. That means $$$.

 

Why not just pull it off and bend it back? If you could do that i wouldn't even bother replacing it. Seems like it would be fairly easy to make it semi-straight again.

 

Mine looked like that, until I got the Sonoran Steel control arms.

 

Those arms are quite thin and easily bent back, I ended up buying SteveO's Spidertrax's arms and haven't had any problems...

 

Just bend them back and weld on some gussets

 

thats what mine looks like

 

Take it out and flipped it upside down, then maybe the next rock will straighten it out. LOL

 

if life were only that easy. i think im just gonna hunt down a used replacement...although im not sure how easy those will be to come by, unless i go remove it myself.

id get beefier SS arms..but right now, after my ARB, im straight outta low ca$h...

 

Hey Sonny,
check out http://www.importautorecyclers.com

They've got several trashed runners. I think their prices are a bit $$$.