Hi again guys.
Well as you know about my car it was totaled but now is in running order but with a miscoloured front atm will be repainted once this rainy weather has passed. Well in the accident, one of the tie rods on the steering rack were snapped but we used the donor car's steering rack. We noticed when the replacement steering rack was refitted the one wheel turned out and one was straight. So what we did was adjust the tie rod out a bit on one side. We found this quite odd as it is same car so the tie rods shouldn't have had to be adjusted. I now notice on the side where the rod was snapped on the old rack that the wheel sits out about 5mm or so out further than the other wheel. Does this mean that the strut could have been bent or is it just that the wheel alignment is out. Just need some ideas cause when we have painted it it's going in for an alignment. It won't be a huge problem if it is bent cause it'll be donor car to the rescue again :P . Thanks in advance

If there has been enough force to break a rod end, then there was enough force to do a lot more damage as well

Personally I would have used the complete front end from the donor car, that is k frame, rack and struts complete, aside from the exhaust etc there are only 6 mounting points for the k frame and the whole lot just drops straight out.

I would say 99% chance that is more than just the rack, do the lot to be sure

The accident probably bent a lot of things on the one side, not just the obvious snapping of the tie rod or tie rod end. Do as Madmagna suggests, use the other bits from non-crashed car. You see a few badly repaired cars crabbing down the road sideways (slightly), wouldn't want your car to be one of those. lol

You could do the paint and the wheel alignment as it is, and the guy who does your alignment can tell you whether it can be adjusted to normal angles, but be prepared for bad news from him.

But I'd probably only have to use the K frame and strut on the side where the tie rod was snapped off aye? Is it pretty easy to do? Like would you have to remove the drive shaft? And how long would it take to swap the parts do you reckon?

K frame is a solid alloy part so needs to be done as a complete unit, can not do just LHS, as is soft alloy it can be bent a mm or two and will then be a case of your front allignment never being right again

Yeah, I was looking at it before on the donor car. It looks like it'd be a big job to replace. What happens with the springs? Do you have to put tension on them when replacing the struts and K frame? Also that bar that goes from the K frame to the bottom of the brake disc does that have to be replaced as well?

if you are replaceing the struts then yes, the springs need to be compressed using spring compressors so the top can be undone and spring removed. easier to just use the spring and strut as one from the doner car.

Ok, we have decided to replace the K frame as we have taken some measurements and they're way off. I just wanted to ask, when removing the K-frame what has to come off to do so? Like do we have to remove the steering rack again?

We figured out what was bent. Also dad reckons that the K-frame is not made out of the type of material that would bend. He reckons it would either crack, break or be intact. Since it wasn't cracked or broken, we looked elsewhere to find the problem. Looking at the lower control arm, we saw that it was slightly bent. We have swapped the lower control arm and it seemed to have been successful as the toe-in needed to be adjusted back out. Also the measurements dad took are now spot on both sides. It seemed to have fixed the problem but I will take it for a wheel alignment as soon as the front end it painted. We havn't got around to painting yet as the rainy weather has forced us to post-pone it :/. We should be able to get the painting done next weekend which means that following monday after the weekend we paint it, it can go in for the wheel alignment.

Well she's going in for the alignment in about an hour. Just got her painted this wkend and she's looking fabulous again. Wish her luck in the alignment :P

K frames do bend, have seen this a few times on the wrecks. Remember it only takes a very slight bend to completely throw the complete front end out

Be interesting to see if was just the arm, hoping it is

K frames do bend, have seen this a few times on the wrecks. Remember it only takes a very slight bend to completely throw the complete front end out

Be interesting to see if was just the arm, hoping it is

especially on a FWD where all the workings are up front.

In my side-on crash i was lucky that only the strut got bent after taking the full force of the hit.

Well they did the alignment and said it was all good. it drives completely straight and rides perfectly. Drove it about 120km today :P. Took my mates out again and shit. Just like old times b4 the crash :D. I'm glad that she's back in business and full drivable. The only thing I need to worry about is fuel which I usually don't have enough money for. Pumped 40L out of the donor car but that won't last me long.

Btw guys thank you for all your support during the repair of it. U have given me good advice etc that helped me get her back on the road.