What should I look for???
 

This happened Friday on VIR Full. I was turning at 17 onto the front straight and the left lower ball joint broke.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...454285cc21.jpg

I'll obviously need a complete door and a fender (and headlight, and brake caliper, lower control arm, tie rod, wheel, etc.) We hit pretty hard. I crawled around underneath after some industrious VIR participants got it up on the trailer. The underneath doesn't look damaged at all. The driver''s door opens and the lock works. The door sill seems straight. The hood opens, shuts, and locks, but will need some stickers.

What else do I need to look for to make sure it's repairable before I start dropping money into her?

Thanks,

Ouch! Glad you are ok.

Maybe have a good look at the front subframe?

What was the failure - ball come out, or the casting broke? Might be an idea to replace the other one if they have led similar lives ...

The ball joint shaft was sheared off at the bottom of the knuckle boss. If that was caused by the impact rather than causing the impact, I can find no other culprit.

Related question. I have never tried this before...

I spent what seemed like most of the day trying to get the broken piece of the ball joint shaft out of the knuckle. I noticed I had a lot of play in the upper control arm, shock, and knuckle. Once the broken piece was out, I was able to loosely fit a spare ball joint into the control arm, and then lower the knuckle onto the ball joint. Is that normal--again, I never tried to do that before--or do I have issues with other components, like the shock?
Thanks,

Got a photo of the break? If it was impact damage, the break should show signs of consistency across the surface (IE no signs of prior failure). OTOH, if it had cracked beforehand it should be detectable by eye that there is an area with different colouration/character to the most recent failure.

But if it was impact damage, was there something else that broke and cause the off?

You'll want to make sure the "frame horn" on the driver side is relatively straight. If you have a shop nearby that specialize in race cars (or Spec Miatas in general) it might be worth stripping everything down you can and having them take a look.

^^ What Midtenn said.
Strip off fenders, get the running gear so it rolls, and get a frame shop to look at it. Unless the front horn is so obviously bent you just take it to the frame shop to have them pull it straight.
I have followed that path more than once with race cars.

Here are some pics of the hood and fenders fit.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a309cd4955.jpgleaf

I can run a piece of loose leaf paper through the gap between the hood and the fender, but not a business card. Here's the other side...


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d0ee00fb00.jpg

I don't believe the hood was moved out of place.

The cross beam that has the hood bumper looks like it has been bent downward slightly. You can also see the fender has moved beneath the most forward fender bolt. The fender has shifted enough to pinch the air filter shroud, but not enough to crack the fiberglass anywhere. The thin cross beam at the bottom of the pic that holds the plastic mount for the football thingy is bent and moved inward.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8bb36bcd18.jpg

Does any of this look like it needs a frame shop visit?

Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours,

For peace of mind the advice is still the same. It does cost a few hours labour for them to mount it and measure it, even if they do not pull it at all.
The images show things have bent, but if the frame rail is bent it is not by very much.
So you could get it healthy again in the rolling gear, and get an alignment. If they can put a proper alignment on it, then it is not bent enough to matter.
If you can then get a respectable fit of a new fender then it is not bent enough to matter. But the alignment test stands as the first criteria, if you do not want to go to a frame shop first.

It does look minor enough that it is worth spending money on, at least to progress to the alignment stage.

Not sure I have a full sense of the problems from your description, but here is a try:
Nothing wrong with being able to slide the knuckle easily onto the replacement lower ball joint. But be sure the pinch bolt can set it in place tightly. If not, the lower knuckle fitting for the ball joint may be damaged.
There should not be "a lot of play" in the upper control arm, but I am not sure what you mean in terms of directions of play.
It should not have play when pushing it backwards or forwards. Or not much. It should require a pry bar be used to generate enough force to move it back and forth much at all. On the other hand, it should be relatively free to move up and down.
The upper ball joint should be able to move through the required range of motion with some force, between light to moderate with your hand. But if it wiggles freely and has the feeling of play within the "ball" itself, then it has probably failed. An impact that wrecks the lower control arm could certainly damage the upper ball joint.

It's not that much work to pop that fender off and that should give you a pretty good look at the non-cosmetic bits. From this perspective, it doesn't look as bad as it did earlier. Pop that fender off and look for anything that looks out of place - you might want to pop the other fender off so you have the other side to compare against.

My '96 street car clearly took a hit to the left front before I bought it. It had a non-matching shock on that corner, an NB lower control arm, and the upper arm was bent such that the bushings weren't actually in line. I didn't find this all at once unfortunately so I went through a bit of a process replacing it all. It's not so expensive to get replacement arms, just make sure if you buy used you check them thoroughly before putting them on - I didn't do that and ended up with an arm that had damage to the bushing bore that I only discovered after the return window. My replacement upper arm even came with the long bolt, which would be nice peace of mind here.

My two cents would be to replace the arms now, since you're probably going to need them anyhow and spares are nice. See how it aligns. Go to the frame shop if your alignment bolts end up in weird places to get clean numbers, or if things just don't feel right after you replace the arms.

I agree, a good alignment is what really matters, all else is cosmetics.

Replace the arms, maybe also the upright, and see what alignment numbers can be achieved. If good, all good! If not I would throw a known good K-mount in (that is, one that was not removed from a car with front end damage). Based on those photos I'd be very surprised if you then needed the frame pulled unless for cosmetics.

Sorry to see this! I put mine into a tire wall last year, not nearly this bad.. but it sucks.

I'd get that fender off ASAP, get a replacement fender and mock it up and see how it fits Doesn't look that bad to me, your measuring fender to hood gap means nothing until you get a fresh fender on there.

Good luck!

Agreed. I was trying to convince myself the hood hadn't actually been moved because it did get damaged.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...513abdd19e.jpg

But this tells me the unibody wasn't tweaked very much at all...


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b1d618736c.jpg

Here's a used fender laid in with only a couple of bolts. That gap is 10mm minus the thickness of the fender at the bolt hole. How would I go about trying to fix that? Engine hoist?

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...680b6530c4.jpg

Any words of wit would be greatly appreciated.

So the front end is pushed down relative to the back end of the frame?
That is substantial movement required to get it back up.
You have to pull against something, so I think a hoist will just lift the whole car, not pull the frame horn upwards.
I don't think a sledge hammer will move it up enough without just crushing what you pound on.

So, you would need a shade tree mechanic who know how to do a frame shop level job.

What is far harder to tell is if any of the suspension mounting points have shifted. That still speaks to getting an alignment.
You are going to have to judge if a fender can be pulled into place with screws and still leave the fitment looking OK from outside the car.

I used a floor jack and a length of pipe and pushed up from below that front most fender bolt hole, just to see what would happen. It seems to have worked, at least as far as the fender goes. The fender now fits there, and the fender nuts line up at the side plate just outside the headlight, but there's still a little work to do.

Does this sound reasonable? I have all the suspension pieces--new lower ball joints, inner tie rods, tie rod ends, a used driver's side upper control arm, hubs, and new upper and lower control arm bushings. However, I'm considering trying to see if I can align the front --I do my own alignments-- with just a spare inner tie rod and lower ball joint. I'd never take her back on track this way, but it seems like it could be counterproductive to replace all those pieces and then find out there's something awry. That said, I honestly believe the subframe is okay.

Thanks,

Sounds like a good plan. If it works, great! If it doesn't, you are still no closer to an outcome, as the problem could be in the parts you have lined up to replace anyway, or could still be deeper - like a bent K-mount. But it is a start on getting to the bottom of the health of the front end - step by step.

^^ What Gee Emm said, good plan. You do not need most of the new parts to find out if you can get a decent alignment.