Straighten Bent Areas Without Heating

[shanX]

Or better yet, if you're car isn't a pretty rare car around here, you can just hunt down a recon lower control arm or whatever part that is bent and get it replaced. Instead of having to replace the whole suspension

[VVTi]

To the OP, how difficlt will it be to take the car to a reputed garage/mechanic or even a good wheel alignment center, get them to check it and if needed replace a lower arm/balljoint/rackend instead of looking for a suitable tree, chains, pulleys and a suitably qualified maka baas to stretch and pull your car apart.

I had an Accord whose rear wheel got bent by me while reversing rather drunk, all I did was take it to an alignment place and they pulled out the bent trailing arm and replaed it with a used unit and did the alignment, all within a matter of 3 hours and a cost of less than Rs. 5000.

Mind you, this methood of tying the car  to a tree and pulling crap out of it worked miracles during the times cars were made of ship grade sheet metal, but the new sheet metal will rip like tissue paper if the force used is too much or at the wrong angle.

But then if you still insist on doing it your way, find a good tree, and heck, some of us will come with teh cahins and the blocks and do it for you, just to see how far the car will stretch...  

[The Don]

How do I find "one of them"? I guess the plain old garages will not have them

one or two affordable suggestions are highly appreciated. Anyone able to help?

Everything depends on the nature of the issue. If its the lower arm that is bent then it can be resolved by just replacing the arm. No trees necessary If the bracket is bent there again a wheel alignment place might be able to help. The issue here is it's a precision job and needs to be done by somebody who understands that aspect. Else as VVTI suggests it might cause more damage. That is why your baas opted for the heat and straighten technique as you can very carefully bend it back into shape after heating it though it can compromise the strength.

Particularly if it's the bracket you might not have any choice but to heat and straighten because you can't pull that out without pulling apart other bits of the chassis too. Get a few opinions from a few workshops and see what they come up with.

[xlr8r]

Hello there!

My car met with an accident some time ago on the font left hand side and now I find that the left front wheel is a little behind the right wheel.

Consulted a few tinkering people and they all say have to heat and straighten it.

Is there any place or way to straighten this amuwen (without heating)?

Can I tie the left hand side to a strong tree with an equally strong chain and yank the vehicle

to straighten it out?

Any advice will be highly appreciated!

Hi, What is your vehicle? Is the difference clearly visible? Does your car gets pulled to a side?

In any case u should never try this grease moneky idea of pulling by tying to a tree.. Cos like others said it causes more damage since all the lower arms are connected with bushes when u pull actually the rubber bushes gets damaged n will keep bouncing back. This will not straiten anything till it damages something else. Also there is no guarantee that the exact part which is bent will get straightened.

So the best u can do is replace the whole connecting arms (u might be able to get a full recon set for reasonable price) cos a very small dent can cause big change on the wheel distance.

If that fails u will have to replace the bed. That is the part which is bolted to the chassis n holds all the arms of the wheel. cos sometime the part where the arms get fixed could be slightly of.

If u can't see a big difference in the wheel arch n if the car is pulling to a side u can get it fixed by adjusting the camber. Try Car care in Wellawatta those guys are pretty good in their work.

good luck..

Edited November 23, 2011 by xlr8r