wheel tilt

[meohmy01]

i asked this question in another post of mine but i never got an answer so i figured i'd try gain. the front passenger wheel it tilted in at the top and is turned to the right a few degrees. and idea what could cause this? it wasn't like this before but i crashed into a durt embankment and messed the whole front of the cr up.

['89AccordLX(Rus)]

The alignment issue can be caused by frame damage or bent suspension parts. Chances are if it is minor, the toe-in issue can be corrected easily by a shop. Now the camber is different. Our Accords don't have adjustable camber angle. If you want to correct the camber without doing frame work/suspension repair, you would need to find out what the camber is now, and then correct it with a proper kit. The kits usually replace the mounting points/spindle of the upper control arm with an offset mount/spindle assembly which corrects the camber. The Shop Manual states that normal camber angle should be 0 +-1 degree.

Hope this helps.

[meohmy01]

the camber is off by quite a bit. the frame damage didn't extend that far back. it pretty much just pushed the core support maybe a half inch to the passenger side. i replace the uppser control arm with one that i had laying around and it didn't help. i can't imagine that i could have bent the steering knuckle. none of the suspension components look bent.

another note. the car is lowered 2.25 inches on all 4 corners.

['89AccordLX(Rus)]

Originally posted by meohmy01
the camber is off by quite a bit. the frame damage didn't extend that far back. it pretty much just pushed the core support maybe a half inch to the passenger side. i replace the uppser control arm with one that i had laying around and it didn't help. i can't imagine that i could have bent the steering knuckle. none of the suspension components look bent.

another note. the car is lowered 2.25 inches on all 4 corners.

The fact that the car is lowered may explain the inward camber angle. Unless you took measures to correct the camber when you lowered the car, you may have inward camber on all four corners. See if the rest of the wheels have a tilt to them. I doubt the core support would influence your camber unless it affected/moved the mounting points of the control arms. The toe-in may be related to the core support because the suspension radius rod mounts at the front of the vehicle. If the core support moved the mounting point of the radius rod for that corner, the entire suspension on that corner may have moved. Check for obvious differences in mounting points of all suspension components between the side affected and the side that is still true. You might be able to correct the problem with just an alignment or it might take a frame puller to get everything squared up. Also, look for metal wrinkling around the core support.

[meohmy01]

that's the only corner that is tilted like that. what do you mean by wrinkling around the core support? the whole core support is pushed to the right about a half of an inch.

['89AccordLX(Rus)]

By wrinkled metal I mean that there are obvious contractions in the metal due to the impact. Since the core support moved to the right, the radius rod mount may have moved likewise. This would explain the toe-out (radius rod rotated the lower control arm). The camber issue may be a result of the upper control arm mounting points being pushed upwards. When you hit the incline, did the front of the car slide up over the ground? If so, chances are the corner not only moved to the right but also up. An easy way of checking for frame damage is to take a look at the body lines. If the gaps aren't even and true, chances are there is frame damage.

[meohmy01]

well i know there's frame damage. the left side is where i hit. that corner is bent up back and to the right. the hood line was off by a half of an inch and the headlight on the right side was off by the same amount all the way around. i moved stuff around and got the body lines to look right again even though there is still frame damage. is the suspension repairable? i just bought the car 2 weeks ago and i'm quite upset about the fact that it's totalled. not a single dent on the car and it's totalled.

['89AccordLX(Rus)]

Well, instead of doing frame repair, you can try to have a shop correct the alignment. The toe-in as I said earlier is fairly simple, just tie-rod adjustment and/or radius rod adjustment. The camber however may need either a correction kit or a conversion to Prelude arms which are adjustable. I think it would be a good idea to first find out how much your suspension is out of alignment. I know that the kits allow you to correct somewhere around 2-3 degrees (off the top of my head, not sure). The Prelude arms should be able to go even more than that. (try searching the board, numerous topics about this). If you got all the body lines to match up, the frame damage is probably minor, fixing the suspension with alignment work would be cheaper and easier than trying to pull the frame.

[meohmy01]

i've been reading up on the prelude arms on the board. i found some for 50 bucks for the pair at the junkyard, which isn't a great price but it's not bad so i'll go with it. but before i go and buy them i'd liek to be absolutley sure that they will help. the top of the wheel on the passenger side is an inch behind the fender opening where the other 3 wheels it is even due to the offset on the wheels. will these arms provide that much of a correction?