Rear wheel position/crash repair?

beepbeep · 11-21-2005, 03:21 AM

I'm looking for working 911 to drive some track events with until our project-car is finished.

This weekend I checked one car that looked good on paper. It's a -74 tub with -87 engine, SSI, Quaife diff and rebuilt gearbox, rollbar, 964 calipers on original rotors, newly painted and track ready.

Unfortunately, reason for it's lates repaint was a crash damage...owner spun and hit the wall with passenger side, doing damage on front and rear fender. Car was reapired and repainted and it looked cosmetically well.

It was then I noticed that passenger side rear fender looked kinda strange. It's shape differed from driver side fender and wheel was positioned somewhat further back in fender.

Pics:

Now this can be a result of fender repair (fender wasn't replaced but just bended/knocked out and finished with bondo) and I could live with that, being track car and all. But I wouldn't want a car with bent driveline/suspension. Owner had papers from wheel alignment pre accident. He said that shop did post repair wheel alignment job as well but papers "dissapeared" somehow. He was racing the car many years but says he decided to sell it after the repair. Car didn't see any track duty after the repair.

I drove it briefly and I couldn't see if it pulled to any side. It was quite twichy though but it's probably beacuse of very aggressive front wheel alignment (it runs around 2 deg. of camber).

What do you think? Should I let the owner do the alignment job and check the protocol? Would that tell me if tub was straight or not?

Other than that, It felt quite peppy and fun. Couldn't drive it much longer as it had R-tires and it was extremly cold outside, roads were bad as well.

beepbeep · 03:32 AM

OK, here is better way to illustrate what I'm afraid of:

Other than that, I really like the specs. It's a lightweight 74 tub with RS-door panels and all usual tweaks already done (LSD, turbo stearing thingies, RSR front chin, bigger torsion bars, adjustable swaybars, bigger engine etc.)

jevvy · 11-21-2005, 03:36 AM

looks a bit wierd - would the quickest way to tell if its body or other not be to measure from lip to lip from front to back wheel on both sides (with steering straight ahead)

it looks a good few inches out so it will be immedietley obvious from the measurments I would imagine.

jevvy · 11-21-2005, 03:37 AM

just realised you are a PP die hard with 3K+ posts - sorry to suggest the obvious and "teaching you to suck eggs" as we say on this side of the pond!

beepbeep · 11-21-2005, 03:44 AM

No problems jevvy, I appreciate any kind of input.

From where I see it, there are two posibilities:

1. Rear fender was mangled up and repaired "on cheap" by knocking it straight and letting the bondo cover the roughies. This ill-repaired fender sits sommewhat offset, which makes rear wheel look crooked. I can live with that as car is going to live on track 80% of time.

2. Rear fender and rear wheel were knocked...fender repaired with "el cheapo" method but sway-arm took a beating and moved further back. This is a big no-no and car should be priced in project-category which it obviously isn't (owner wnat's a good chunk of money for it).

jevvy · 11-21-2005, 04:30 AM

I think you are right with the 2 possibilities - would you trust the current owner to make some measurments?

I have had a play about in photoshop with the images and the wheel does look out of place in relation to other parts of the car.

I have to nip out now but if you are interested I will upload the photoshop overlays later for you.....