MidnightNB

So I turned onto street from stoplight, spun the tires a little in the slush and when I let off instead of hooking up, it continued to under steer into a curb. My sterile and tire is flat obviously and I broke axel and other front end parts; axel I could see plain as day but I couldn't et a good look where it is to see the rest. I struck curb at approx 10mph, for sure no more than 15mph if my estimation is off because I had left the light from dead stop and struck curb under 5 yards into the street I turned onto. My question is this, if my lower control arm, spindle and ball-joint look ok, what on these cars holds the top of the spindle straight to keep the wheel from tipping out into massive positive camber? I am 500 miles from home away on work in an expensive city, and I work 6am to 6pm 7 days a week here and do not feel like spending much time under a car in a parking lot in the snow under jacks in the dark in our perpetual canadian -20 weather. I'm trying to decide if I want to tow to local garage at 80 to 100/hr+ or if the work will be too much here, to get family to drive a truck up and tow me home in a car dolly to fix in my garage at home. I would have said upper control arm but these cars don't have one I recognize because I've always worked on trucks and quads that have a real a-arm style control arm top and bottom, and only our lower is like that. What exactly is up top there? My shock is tilted aswell to follow the wheel that's tilted out(positive camber). So if anybody knows what type of parts I'm looking at it's be greatly appreciated, thanks everybody.

yellowsupercharged06

iTrader: (3)

the knuckle has the wheel bearing inside of it, inside of the wheel bearing is your axle end with the splines.

The top of the knuckle connects to the strut (2 bolts)

The tie rod connects to the rear of the Knuckle

The ball joint connects to the bottom/inner side of the knuckle



Take pics, and if the axle broke... where at ? If it broke off at the tip im sure the inside of your wheel bearing (the teeth) are prbly damaged as well.


The knuckles are known to crack after being curbed, so i would look for stress fractures.

MidnightNB

I'm away from car and only operating on iPhone so pics could be problem for now. Not broken at tip, the axel is broken at the inner cv/universal, snapped clean off as has happend to me many times(motor mount failure, not curb strikes) I know knuckle has bearings, knuckle looks ok, ballpoint looks ok, car will be shelved and mothballed once I fix my chev avalanche if there is stress cracks so I will not replace anything that isn't broken in 2. So basically what your saying is the strut tower is what holds the too of wheel straight so with my axel I propable need a shock-mount and a new shock, which isn't bad, and I'll do my tie-rod too since its probably a little bent although it isn't broken and I had steering still when my buddy towed me into parking lot with his truck. Towing was only 90+tax to a better garage I used before next town over so towing is on way to pickup my key and get the car soon. Said screw-it and going with garage, job has been stressful lately and I'm on my 9th straight 12hr day so I'm just gonna fix asap and screw the cost so I can get home to my wife and kids for a few days off after a couple more days here waiting for repair. Thanks for advice anyways and I will post list of what went wrong so if somebody has another problem like this after, they'll find my details of problem/solution when they search "hit curb" and find this thread. Will keep you guys updated, thanks.

Wind903

I kinda had a similar thing happen to me. I was making a hard u turn and when I got back on the power I hit a patch of gravel which took me to the curb hard. I'd say I hit about the same speed but my wheel was full left and I completely buckled my control arm but didn't break it, pushing the wheel towards the rear of the well.
Luckily my strut, knuckle, wheel and tie rod came out damage free. My wheel bearing is still good surprisingly. The 2 mile ride back with it like that was not the most fun I've had in a long time.

Rittwage1994

I did the same exact thing. luckily the only thing I bent was my control arm. I had about 3 degrees of positive camber until I got a new one. double check the control arm and make sure its straight or atleast he same as the other side. also make sure you didn't bend your tie rod or sway bar/ sway bar links