Front crossmember

[HotRaud90]

Hey, y'all. Over the past few months, I've been doing a bit of a front end overhaul on my car. It started out as a couple little things here and there and eventually grew into a "While I've got it apart, I might as well..." type of situation.

Long story short, today I noticed something on the front end that caught my eye. When looking at the impact bar head on, I could clearly see a difference in height from one side to the other. At first I thought my impact bar was bent. Then, after realizing the impact bar was straight, I looked at the impact bar mounting brackets to see if one was bent. When I got behind there, I noticed that the left hand side mounting bracket was very slightly bent, and I also noticed that the cross-member that the brackets are bolted to was slightly deformed on the left side. I immediately started worrying that my frame might be bent too, but it appears that all is well with the frame. At this point I'm thinking that I can just replace the front cross-member and the left side mounting bracket and be done with it; however, upon further inspection, the cross-member does not look like it's bolted to the frame of the car, but appears to be welded in place.

Am I correct in my assumption that this part is welded in place and would have to be cut off and a new one welded in its place? Never had to touch or inspect this part of the car before so I'm a little unsure of how to proceed if I'm going to replace it. Is it worth replacing?

As a disclaimer, this has never affected the car as far as I know. It didn't displace the bumper cover as far as I could tell and it's only about 1/2 - 3/4 of inch higher on the left.

I'll post pictures for reference. Will have to do it through Tapatalk since it's an abysmal process through website domain.

[HotRaud90]

First picture shows difference in height from right to left. Notice the gap between header panel and bumper absorbers that disappears as you move right to left.

Second picture shows bottom of frame where it appears the cross-member is welded.

Third picture shows the bend in the cross-member at the top. You can't see it in the pic, but the upper edge is rippled where it meets the frame. Weld held fast, but the lip of the cross-member is rippled on either side of the weld.

[justbob]

It’s not bent, that’s just from the factory tightening it down. You see the 13MM nuts? Take those off to remove. But I’d leave it as is.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[HotRaud90]

It’s not bent, that’s just from the factory tightening it down. You see the 13MM nuts? Take those off to remove. But I’d leave it as is.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

At first, I too thought those nuts might be what secure the cross-member; however, upon further inspection with better lighting this morning, I found that those nuts secure the impact bar mounting brackets to the cross-member via a bracket. This bracket has bolts that pass through the back of the cross-member. The little brackets that pass through the back of the cross-member can be removed once you remove the nuts, but it will not remove the cross-member.

That's a reasonable theory about deformation caused by over-tightening, but I can't imagine it would deform the upper part of the cross-member the way it sits right now. I'll have to get a better picture to show how the cross-member looks where the top weld is located. The right side looks nice and flat against the frame, but the left side (the one in question) looks wavy and bent. That, in turn, seems to be bending the impact bar mounting bracket, which would cause the uneven condition on the left. I'll post more pictures later.

[dmjarosz]

As a disclaimer, this has never affected the car as far as I know. It didn't displace the bumper cover as far as I could tell and it's only about 1/2 - 3/4 of inch higher on the left.

I have a few weird quirks on my car as well, I chalk it up to "factory rework". I'm in the camp of "if it aint broke, dont fix it." Save the money to spend on fun parts!