So the tie rod / alignment issue was perplexing me because the car acted as if they had failed but everything was still tight. So last night I went for a short drive and the car was acting completely different again but not in a good way. The torque I was getting when accelerating was gone and the steering was spongy to a point were I was really worried about getting back home. I stopped along the way and looked at my tires and the driver side one was nearly scrubbed out. I guess I have a brand new spare tire now.

Made it home and had to think about what to do with it because I didn’t feel comfortable driving it but I kind of need it to get around. This morning I decided I could get it to my friend’s shop to change the tie rods and be done with it but I had to at least put on another tire before slowly making my way there.

I removed the tire and then tugged on the steering and as before, it was solid. I fidgeted some more and then I saw the control arm moving more than it should. I looked around to the inside and then that is when I discovered basically what is in the picture. That really put me off my game, so to speak. The framework for the control arm mount was tearing itself off of the car and to think that I have had this thing going highway speeds in this condition, it kind of broke me. This is one of the things that my mechanic said could be the problem, I just didn’t know to look in the right place until now.

The first thing I did was put the car on a jack stand and get out a wire wheel to scrub away the rust and see what was really going on. After getting a good look I then looked at the other one to see if it was any worse but thankfully it doesn’t show any signs of trouble yet. I called my Dad, I let people know, I had a little mental breakdown.

To say that I love this car is a bit of an understatement and it is going to take more than this to get me to stop keeping it going. It was a nice day out and so I sat there on the grass in the warm breeze thinking about the different tracks I could go with this issue. Time passed and I was basically sitting with an old friend wondering if this was going to be our last time together. An hour passed and I decided to just break away from some of my distractions so I could focus more and I have a couple solutions to this in mind.

First thing is that I am going to see if it can be patched, welded, and re-coated. This will also include putting a patch on the other one to reinforce it just-in-case. If that doesn’t look sound, then maybe I can find a part to replace it, which would actually be more labor intensive and therefor more expensive. After those, then I will just have to park it while I think of another solution.

This isn’t the end of this adventure, I will figure it out.