LCA Mount

[mrcabinet]

At 1:30 this morning, I got a call from my daughter. She had hit some standing water going through a turn, spun out and corrected it - but not soon enough to avoid going over the center median and taking out a road sign. She's O.K., but the sign post busted the right front fender flare to pieces, roached the fender and hood in a few places and put a small dent in the windshield frame right above where it cracked the windshield. The steering wheel is now a 1/4 turn to the left, but that's no big deal to fix.

This morning I took a closer look and discovered that the inside flange of the lower control arm mount is bent, along with the bolt. Can I just cut the bolt off and pound the flange back with a BFH? Or is this something that needs to be professionally done? Also, how hard is it to replace the windshield? I've watched it being done on some of my other cars and, since I might not be going through the insurance, I may do the work myself.

[FourbangerYJ]

As long as there is no crack in the metal once you move the LCA mount back into place you should be OK. Check to see if the control arm is bent too.

[Jeffy]

The steering wheel off center tells me the front axle shifted.  If the mounts aren't too bend you can pound them back.  If they are really bent then you might want to reinforce them with some welding and box them some.  Cut or unbolt, bend or weld, then measure and see if the axle is centered again.

[aw12345]

Or it simply bend the trackbar or draglink or both.

[mrcabinet]

Oh it definitely shifted to the left. After closer inspection this afternoon, both bracket sets are tweaked. There aren't any cracks, but we'll see after I bend them back - a little reinforcement may be called for.

I did find a local guy that will replace the windshield for $155 installed w/ a new seal, which I thought was pretty dang good.