OVER 9000!

Hi guys,
So a couple weeks ago I had an accident and went off the road into a gently sloping ditch, but there was a 2 foot wide concrete drainage channel with a dip in it at the bottom of the ditch. I hit the concrete channel at an angle with my passenger side front which hopped over to the other side, and then the rear end swung around to where the passenger rear wheel dipped down into the concrete channel and then came around so that I had done a 180. The only visible damage was a broken rear wheel and a dent in the side skirt. I immediately took it to a shop to get the alignment fixed and they said that the front and rear passenger side lower control arms were bent, but they fixed the alignment as best as they could. I replaced the rear passenger side lower control arm, but it did not change anything and the original did not look bent compared to the new one. Right after I replaced the control arms I noticed that the passenger side looked lower than the driver side. I measured from floor to fender and the difference was 1" in the rear and 3/8" in the front. After seeing this I started thinking that the passenger side shocks were blown, so I bought a set of used oem shocks with lowering springs and just put them on today and the front wheels were the same height, but the 1" difference was still there in the rear. It is weird because the driver side rear didn't really receive much of the impact at all. The driver side rear is also the only corner where we had difficulty mounting the shock on the control arm. We brainstormed what could be causing this and we could only conclude that either the frame is bent (kind of unlikely though), or the control arm is bent. What do you guys think? We are really stumped on this one.
Thanks,

Shane

TL;DR Driver side rear is 1" higher than the passenger side and we can't figure out why

macr88

The knuckle could cause a ride height issue if it's bent.
The controls arms are really hard to check, did you replace it with a new one or a used one?

Reapur

Could be a bushing preload problem.

thomsbrain

Could be a bent knuckle, and your subframe may have shifted, too.

OVER 9000!

I bought the replacement control arm used. The guy that I bought it from said that he thought that it was bent at first and replaced it with a new one, but then found that his knuckle was bent, not the control arm. I'll have to check the knuckle tomorrow. Is a bent knuckle noticeable to the naked eye?

OVER 9000!

I made sure to not tighten the bolt that goes through the bottom strut mount bushing until I had the car off the stands

macr88

Bent anything on this car is hard to tell.

TWF

Why was it difficult? Was shock pointing to side of mount and you had to pull it to align? If yes I would check upper mount and make sure it is not bent. Could be bent and you binding shock by forcing it on lower mount.

OVER 9000!

Sorry for not checking in for a few days. I got the ride height issue figured out. I finally got my torque wrench from a friends house and went back to the passenger side rear lca and loosened all the bolts going through the bushings as well as the drivers side lower strut mount and jacked up each arm until the car started lifting off the stands and then torqued them to spec and it fixed all the ride height issues. So it was a bearing preload problem. I was unaware that you had to preload the suspension every time you undid a bolt going through a bushing.

Here's the update on the car: I put the other set of oem struts with lowering springs on today and it drastically changed the ride of the car. Now it pulls extremely hard to the right and feels uneasy at speeds above 40mph. I took it to my buddy at the honda dealership and I was suspicious of the front right lca being bent, and as soon as he put it on the rack my suspicions were confirmed. I definitely have a bent lca, but I also found out I have a bent radiator core support. I've attached a few pics of the bent support as well as my alignment chart. The passenger front wheel is pushed back about 1.5-2". I'm hoping that a new lca will bring the caster back to normal, but there's a possibility that the subframe might have been pushed back or that the bent support is affecting the caster somehow.

OVER 9000!

No, it wasn't off to the side, it sat too low on the control arm. If I have an extra person with me I have to have them stand on the rotor while I push the bottom of the shock in towards the center of the car and slide the bolt in. If I'm by myself like I was today I have to stick a screwdriver in the other side of the strut mount and through to the bushing and pry it until the holes align and I slide the bolt in. It's weird because the passenger side took most of the impact and none of the other struts were nearly as difficult to get on the mount.