Introduction part II and a question

[CajunMike]

Had a question for the group and didn't want to bury it in the suspension section, so here's some history behind the question to add to my prior introduction. Like I said in Part I, I could write a book about this car. Anyway, background info: Waaaay back in 1988/89 I was pulling into my college dorm parking lot and turning into an empty space. Lovin the luck, right in front . Slow gentle turn, couple mph, then "bang" and crunch as I was about to finish the park. WTF? Jumped out the car and saw the right wheel buckled under the fender well, holy cow! though it was a tie rod busted or ball joint or something, but after further inspection it was a failed crossmember. Control arm ripped right out of the crossmember housing. No go anymore. I couldn't believe the luck that I was just in a parking lot and not on the freeway somewhere. (Luck #2 if you are couting). Ok, so what to do next? Got a bunch of fellow college buddies together and we lifted the whole front end of the car and put it onto a tow dolly and I dragged it back home to mom and dads for strategy. A new crossmember was out of the budget so we managed to get it off and arranged for a welder friend to fix er up for $25(New one was $250). Whilst this was going on, I had to head back to school and took my dads truck for the interim. Here's where luck #3 comes in. The following tuesday at school we had a severe hail storm while my fiat was resting comfortably at home on jacks. The worst hail storm Ive ever seen. About 6-8 inches of hail pummelled the school and my fathers truck. It literally looked like someone took a ball peen hammer to every square inch of that thing. Surely the fiat would have been destroyed as I saw some other ragtops that went through the ordeal. I couldn't believe the circumstances the led me to not have the fiat that week! Surely divine intervention.

Ok, now here's the question. If I should replace the crossmember and knowing that Ive had 1 catastrophic failure already, would it be prudent to have it weld reinforced? Has anyone had this done. Obviously the fixed crossmember on the car now is weld reinforced and the welder did a bang up job getting the bolts back to spec, but me thinks a factory fresh crossmember with new control arms would be best for the suspension. Thoughts/comments welcome. Thanks for reading.

[mdrburchette]

Mike, it might be a good idea to let someone look at the new crossmember to see if it needs to be beefed up before installing. I only say this because it seems there has been a change in the crossmember...maybe a different manufacturer?..and there has been some concern in the differences.

A story of my own similar to yours. I had gone to a car club meeting on Valentine's day a few years ago and let one of the club members take a test drive in my Fiat. He parked it and I got in it to leave. I was getting ready to pull out of the parking lot and noticed my car didn't turn with the steering wheel. The centerlink had broken! I'm thankful it didn't happen when my friend was whipping it around and very thankful it didn't happen while I was driving home! Of course, that wasn't the end of my story. The boys wanted to see if they could reinstall it enough to move the car into a parking space so I got the jack out of the trunk and accidentally locked the keys in the trunk. We ended up picking the car up, one end at a time, until we got it out of the way.

[TulsaSpider]

Didn't he say that the repair had been back done in 1989? You could always find a salvaged one. There was a thread about a new fabbed unit on Miafori that the guy didn't like the look of.
Those are some "lucky" breaks indeed!

[SpiderHead]

I have a nice clean spare 1979 front crossmember you can have for $100.00.. so get yours looked at, if it doesn't cut the mustard, then drop me a line.



-Ryan

[So Cal Mark]

79 and newer crossmembers are different than the early cars. I think the new crossmembers aren't as strong as the originals, and they weren't too sturdy to begin with.

[mbouse]

i believe i have a x member from a '74 that i'd let go for $25 if i could find it in the snow bank.

i am sure that someone else has one as well....... point is, if you truly are questioning the welding abilities of someone else, you'd certainly get better piece of mind replacing the part.

[CajunMike]

Thanks for the replies. Ryan and Mbouse, Im gonna get a closer look at that crossmember when I get the car moved in a couple months. Ill let you know if I will take you up on the offer if you still have it. I may check the local junk yards around the area too. They have carried some fiats in the past.

Also, after thinking more about it last night, I highly recommend that any crossmember be weld reinforced and will do so with any new or used one I purchase. Had that thing failed in a high speed turn (not that I would ever do such a thing ) it would have been a bad outcome for sure. The plate that holds the bolts for the a arm is simply a flimsy piece of steel at best and quite frankly I an suprised that this doesn't appear to have happened too often, thankfully.


OH, and one more thing to pass on. When we worked on the crossmember, I replaced the bushings as well. Of course whe had the problem of compressing the springs to get everything back together. What we did was jack up my grandfathers 69 Impala and put those babies under the frame. When we let the jack down, the frame compressed the springs and we bound them with some stout copper wire that was laying around the house. Worked like a charm. Ive seen a few posts recommending taking them to a shop. I would try this approach first, just be sure to not be around the springs when you let the jack down in case they decide to wiggle out. This is for the budget minded of course, and please don't go out and buy a 69 impala just to do this. Im sure any vehicle will perform the task admirably.