Frame bent (maybe)

[97ranger22bronco]

The previous owner of the '97 told me that he thought the frame on it was bent, looking under it I don't see anything that drastic, the rails look straight but again, that's just me eyeballing it and not really knowing what I'm looking for. Any advice on 1) how to check if the frame is straight without taking it to a body shop and 2) where and what to look for obvious frame damage.

The previous driver "had to hold the steering wheel quarter turn to the left while driving" but that could be a number of things except the frame. I was also told that int eh past that truck was ran into a concrete culvert, so there's that. The air bag didn't deploy when it did that though so I don't think it could have been that hard to cause frame damage?

 

[Shran]

I'd take it to an alignment shop and have them look at it. Could be a bent tie rod, axle beam, etc. Sometimes airbags won't go off and running into something with the undercarriage has a good chance of not setting them off.

If that's all it is, it's probably fixable easily and shouldn't be real expensive either.

 

[97ranger22bronco]

I was gonna wait to take it to an alignment a bit as I am planning to replace the upper and lower ball joints along with inner and outer tie rods and the adjusting sleeves on general principles; the truck sat in a field for 14 years so I figured all of that is shot or close enough to it to make it worth my time.

 

[pjtoledo]

don't forget a crooked rear axle requires steering input to go straight.

find a clean & smooth area of dirt and drive straight across it, then get out and look at the tire tracks.
the rears are narrower than the fronts. the offset should be equal on both sets of tracks.

 

[97ranger22bronco]

A body shop quoted me $400 just to measure it on the frame straightener so I'm trying to avoid that if at all possible. Then again if it is bent, it's gonna need to be fixed anyways...

 

[scotts90ranger]

You could try the dumb way to check how square things are... tape measure from front of axle tube between U bolts to the lower radius arm bolt head on both sides then side to side. On my '90 the frame is fairly straight but the radius arm crossmember was all screwed up when I ran into a log in a ditch with one front tire... fixed that when I extended the radius arms...

My '97 had been driven into a ditch then they pulled it out with a chain around the middle of the drivers side I beam... got it cheap, put $100 in parts in it and that was 80k miles ago, I gave it a tape measure alignment when I did that and put 60k on the last set of tires (got used so weren't new) with even wear...

 

[97ranger22bronco]

@scotts90ranger I took some pics of the fender, you can see that it's not sitting on there right, but that don't mean the frame is bent, right?

 

[scotts90ranger]

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@scotts90ranger I took some pics of the fender, you can see that it's not sitting on there right, but that don't mean the frame is bent, right?

If I had to guess the front drivers side corner of the bumper pushed up on the fender and pushed the top back toward the door. If it were me I would loosen the fender bolts along the edge of the hood and stick something in the door gap to pry the top of the fender forward to fix the gap then tighten the bolts back down... The core support stuff that goes back to the cab is probably out of wack but no, that stuff doesn't mean the frame is bent, just the body...