Jk1789

Hello,

My JK was hit and the rear driver's side wheel and rear bumper took the impact. The wheel cracked, the lower suspension arm was stretched which distorted the steel around the bushings, the track bar was also compressed and bent and the axle shaft was bent. No body damage at all other than the rear bumper.

So I have replaced the axle shaft, both control arms and the track bar. I did need to straighten the control arm mounting brackets a bit as well. The car currently drives straight if the steering wheel is turned slightly to the left, out of whack enough for the traction control and ABS lights to come on.

I believe the driver's side frame rail is currently pushed back by about 1/2 inch. The rear part of the frame is protruding from the body by that much more than the other side as well as the driver side body mount bolts are all angled back and it appears that the mounts are all mis- aligned with the holes by about that much as well. The front bumper is also about 1/2 inch closer to the grill on the driver's side than passenger side.

It also seems to make sense that the car drives straight with the wheel slightly turned left.

So here is my question, how hard is it to straighten the frame? Is this something I should attempt myself? If not, where should I go?

Or, should I just get an alignment done and see if that corrects the issue?

I'm hoping someone with frame repair experience can point me in the right direction!

Thank you!

Its-a-JK

IMO your not going to solve the frame issue yourself and you could spend hours just trying to figure it all out. Your insurance will cover to have it taken care of correctly so take it to a body shop where they can go over it front to back, side to side and they can put it on a frame rack to get some measurements. If what your saying about the one frame rail being further back than the other it sounds like theres a lot going on from that impact. When my daughters JK was hit from the side on the right front wheel I feared that frame damage might have been in play and from only being able to evaluate things from on the large floor they only thing I could see was a bent track bar. Fortunetly the frame wasn't bent but there were more peices that needed addressing than I could find and the body shop got it all.

JKBud

Straightening a frame takes a lot of force and is not the kind of fix you want to take on yourself. It is best to go to a collision repair shop that does larger trucks because the JK has a pretty tough frame. The only way to know for sure how bad the damage is to get the jeep on the rack and the machine can determine how much everything is off. Proper shops have racks that can get within a millimeter of the original specs so do not doubt the straightening process. Spend some time and find a reputable shop that you feel comfortable with and that will do it right. Once knowing how bad the damage is you can decide if it's worth fixing it or just have insurance total it.