VR hit a gutter

[Mattimus]

Hey all, a mate was driving earlier today and somehow managed to drive up a gutter at somewhere between 30 - 40km/h, both the front wheels hit it simultaneously and now the wheels sit really far back in the arches, barely a couple of mm clearance, the wheels rub on the arches now when he turns and on the left hand side there is damage to the bottom of the arch, looks as if the wheel hit it upon impact.

Was just wondering what kind of damage we can expect to find, and what are the chances of it being a write off?

Cheers, Matt.

[brandon17]

this happend in my car, it was the crossmember,

[Mattimus]

Crossmember hard to fix? expensive? was anything else broken along with it?

Cheers.

[*uwishn*]

i done this awhile back in my old beast,i bent the crossmemeber and the strut and the strut tower it self,lol good luck with it.
crossmember is simple enough to change.(30ks LOL)...

[calais24/7]

get some pics man.

[RX25SE]

This will need to be looked at by a qualified repairer as the chassis rails may be bent.

A crossmember is not hard to replace if it's the only thing bent.

[chooky1980]

pretty lucky if it is just the crossmember!

[VTSSDUDE]

I doubt at that speed you wil have bent chassis rails. I hope your mate didn't have the brakes on as he hit the gutter.
You could be very well lucky to just have bent the control arms.
There is a fair chance that when the lower control arms bend back they bend the part of the K Frame/Cross Member as well. So you will be looking at cross member and control arms. Your power steerining should be okay, but when you find the bent items as always get the wheel alignment checked and let the guys know what happend and what's replaced and they will check it over for you.
I have hit gutters/trees way faster then what your mate did and 2 out of three times I have had to replace the cross member.
You would have to be very unlucky if you have done damage to your chassis rails. Are your wheels/rims okay, in my two cases I cracked the mags and buckled chaser rims.

[Mattimus]

Ah shit, he did have the brakes on as we hit (possibly a good thing as we pulled up about an inch from hitting a stobie pole dead in the centre of the bonnet)

Should have remembered to mention this before, one of the front rims is buckled now, they're VY SS rims so whoops.

Cheers for all the info so far

[Kingo]

A mate of mine has done a similar thing, and his ended up being a bent cross member and radius rod.

Cross member isn't overly hard to change, but a pain. My mate's was a VN so it was easier to take the whole motor out to fix it. But you can do it with the motor in, just supported by a crane or block and tackle. Support motor and undo everything connected to the cross member, it should drop out the bottom. Compare the two radius rods with a good one (wreckers), chances are one or both are bent.

My mate hit one side hard into a gutter, the cross member was pushed in about 2cm on one side, but the radius rod was bent more, and his wheel was pushed right back in the arch much like you've described.

[brandon17]

nah it was all other things, i think the strut and control arms, ? i dont know. haha, but youll be pretty lucky if it was only the cross member, it was an easy fix. not that expencive either

[VTSSDUDE]

If he didn't have the brakes on, there might have been a chance you wouldn't have done any damage, but might.
I forget to mention one of my incidents I had to replace the radius rods as well.

[cander24]

If its bent back that far i'd be looking for a wreck and swapping all the front end to be sure (that's assuming everything else is still structurally safe and undamaged). Parts likely to be damaged are your k-frame, lower control arms, radius rods, top strut bearings and wheel bearings. Possibly more and although only marginal, i'd be guessing your rails are bent down now too.

[XxL1TH1UMxX]

i did this a while back wasnt even going 20 and i bent the chasis rail was going to cost 1k but got dad to fix it also crossmember and strut