Bent upper front spring perch... Thoughts?

[GlennC]

I bought a jeep a few months ago and have since been slowly building it up. After noticing a front camber issue (likely bent knuckle or something) I'm starting to think before I owned it the truck may have hit a curb at speeds.  Since doing 4 inch springs with 2 inch spacers in the front and leafs with shackles in the back the jeep has always had a slant to the driver side of about an inch.

Today I decided to go digging and start taking measurements of what could be bent/out of alignment. I noticed this (after spending hours in the wheel well installing the lift I cant believe I didnt see this before!)

What are my options here? It would seem as the one on more of an angle is somehow bent - and no surprise that is the side with the most camber on the knuckle. I will be getting a new D30 in the near future but sadly I can't just replace the whole upper perch.

As far as I can think without taking it to a proper frame alignment shop my only options are

1: add spacing to that side and hope the spring being bent towards the front of the truck doesnt affect much
or
2: Wedge a bottle jack between the spacer on the top and somewhere on the front, and try to bend it to line up straight with the strut.



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Top = good
bottom = bad

I'm willing to resort to even the craziest of ideas to straighten this out. Doesn't have to be perfect, truck is mostly a camping vehicle with the occasional pull the idiot roomate out.

[cLAY]

Do you have adjustable lower arms? I'm thinking the lower arms are out of adjustment. I'd one longer than the other.

[jkrubi]

The perch does not look bent. Is there any damage anywhere around the perch where it's on the body, if there is the. You need to adjust it.  If not then as clay says you need to adjust the control arms.

If you want to bend it, heat up the perch with an torch till its red hot and put a big bar in the middle and pull it over.

[GlennC]

Its kinda hard to tell from the photo but one of the bump stop holders is on a much steeper angle than the other. It's hard to tell if the actual metal up top is bent but no matter what I do on that side I cant get the spring to sit properly. From taking measurements on the control arms nut-nut they are the same length and from the mount on the vehicle to the tube part of the diff its the same length as well.

Just from messing around with it I think the tube that holds the bump stop might be too weak to bend it back. I need to try to heat it up and bend it from up top I'm thinking.

If you look at the bad spring you can see how it's bowing forward and toward the sway bar assembly and the other one is not, that alone I think is the reason one side sits lower.

I have no upgraded control arms yet but I plan on either getting a drop kit or longer adjustable arms. I want to deal with all of the bent/out of line stuff before I get into spending more money on parts just in case there is a bigger issue.

Thanks for the replies!

[cLAY]

Has the coil rotated and jumped out of the pocket it sits in?

[Vinman]

The upper perch does look bent a bit.
In the top photo, the spring spacer appears perfectly parallel to the shock but in the lower photo, the spacer is not. ( I think thats a spacer anyway)

I'd try a bottle jack and see if it can be moved back.

Vince

[frenchy]

6" of lift with non adjustable controls arms is a bit much.
I'm not sure that a blow torch and hydraulic jack will fix that.

How does it drive

[GlennC]

The coil hasnt rotated out of the cup, it's still held in with the clip + bolt.

Yeah, the spacer on the one doesnt sit parallell like the other. I know 6 inches is too much but this is kinda a constant build - wanted to fix all the little stuff before I invest in control arms and sway disconnects.

Currently it doesnt drive so great leaning to one side. Brake pull to the driver, bump steer that Im sure control arms will help with.

I can get a big bottle jack in there, going to try and get it to sit at the same angle as the other one.

I'll post back and let you guys know how that goes.

[GlennC]

Well, gave it a run with the bottle jack. Had to upgrade to a bigger bar for leverage but I got it straightened out. With both sides now within 1/4 of an inch as opposed to 1 inch it drives a fair bit better already.

Thanks for the input!

If anyone bends one of these just give me a shout, I'm basically the master now of wedging bottle jacks.