Had a relatively minor collision. Passenger side front wheel now has negative camber and toe-out. Trying to figure out what part (or parts) got bent.

[jamesbeat]

I had a collision with another car yesterday. The other car hit me on the front passenger side corner.
There's some damage to the plastics, but the main problem is that the wheel is badly misaligned. I did manage to limp home after carefully checking the ball joints, tie rod etc.

I took both front wheels off today to see what I could see. It's very difficult to take measurements because there aren't many good reference points to base them off, and a lot of the parts are curved.

Since the wheel has negative camber (pushed in at the top) my amateur guess is that the most likely culprits are the upper control arm or the steering knuckle. It does kind of look like the steering knuckle is leaning forward slightly, though with no frame of reference, it's difficult to tell.
The upright part of the knuckle where it joins the upper control arm does have an area of scale or rust that has flaked off, which I guess might be the result of it bending, but I can't be sure of this.

The upper control arm doesn't look bent, but I know that even slight bends to this part can have a dramatic effect. The tie rod does not look bent, but even if it was, I would have expected that to cause toe-in, not toe-out.
I measured the distance from each tie rod to a point on the frame, and with the steering wheel centered, they are the same length.

The steering wheel appears to still be aligned with the driver's side wheel, ie when I have the steering wheel centered, the driver's side hub is pointing straight forward.
I did have to steer to the left in order to go straight as I was limping home, but I think I was just correcting for the excessive toe-out of the passenger wheel.

Looking under the hood, I don't see any visible issues with the area where the upper tie rod attaches.

Looking at the geometry of the steering components, I don't think it could be the lower control arm, because while that could cause the toe-out, I don't think it could cause the negative camber. I'm not sure about this though, because like I said, I'm a total amateur taking guesses.

I guess I'm out of ideas. This is my only vehicle, and I don't have a lot of money to get it fixed. I'm contemplating whether I should start throwing parts at it to see if that corrects the main problem, then I'll only need to pay for an alignment.
The danger with that approach is that I may be wasting money if it turns out the frame itself is bent.

I know it's a long shot, but I know there are people here who spend a lot of time working on these things, so maybe someone can spot something obvious that I missed.
I took a photo of both sides, and then I flipped the photo of the driver's (good) side to make it easier to compare. The steering knuckle does look as if it is slightly rotated clockwise (it looks like this in real life too) and there is that area of flaked scale/rust that may or may not be significant.

If there are any measurements or photos I can take that might help, let me know.

 

[LibertyTC]

Probably best to have an alignment shop inspect it closely.

 

[lfhoward]

The good side has more droop… the bad side is being held up by something. Or it’s just the perspective of the photo.

I agree with TC about having an alignment shop check it out.

 

[jamesbeat]

Yeah, the bad side had about 1" less droop in the photo, but I don't think it is significant. After taking that photo, I tried turning the steering wheel to full lock both ways to see if I could get photos of the angle of the hub, and when I centered it, the droop was gone. I think it was just not centered properly the first time.

 

[jamesbeat]

Just an update on this in case it helps someone in the future:

The problem was a bent steering knuckle. If you research this online, the general consensus is that steering knuckles are cast iron, and will crack rather than bend.
This is not the case, or at least wasn't in my case. I thought the steering knuckle looked warped, but it's so hard to tell because all the surfaces are curved. When I placed the replacement part next to the bent one, it became quite obvious that it was bent.

I have examined the bent one carefully, and there are no signs of cracking whatsoever. Without a good one to compare it to, you wouldn't be able to tell there was anything wrong with it.

As I mentioned above, there was some missing scale or rust on the bent area, and the remaining scale on the edges fell away when I probed it with my finger, indicating that it must have become loose recently (otherwise it would have fallen off during normal driving). This could be a useful clue to look out for when trying to spot a bent part.

I decided not to go to an alignment shop, because it was simply cheaper to buy the parts. I figured that the parts would act as a sort of alignment jig - if I fit the parts and the wheel was still wonky, that's the same as what the alignment shop would have told me anyway.

As luck would have it, the wheel is now perfectly in line again. I was surprised that the upper control arm and the tie rod weren't bent, but I guess it must have just been the angle of the collision.

I had bought an upper control arm and planned to replace that too, but one of the bolts is seized and I can't get it out. I'm just going to take it to a shop to get the new one fitted. It needs doing anyway, because the rubber boot on the ball joint has a tear in it.

Incidentally, the seized bolt on the upper control arm is why the damaged side had less droop in the photos; it was nothing to do with the accident damage.