Ouch! Bruised Alfa :(

[Obadiah Fayth <fayth@xxxxxxx>]

	Wouldn't you know it. While driving a friend home tonight I managed
to injure my car for the first time in my driving history. I was driving on
the freeway around a sweeping curve at night doing 45~50 when I hit what
looked like one of those gray plastic shopping bags. Turned out to be a big
curb sized lumpy piece of concrete. Luckily it only hit the front right
wheel, but it did manage to do a fair amount of damage. A late night
inspection in the dark revealed a rim bent up pretty good and cracked, one
of the bolts that holds the sway bar to the body looks like it was yanked
loose and most disconcerting, loads of toe out. I did replace the tie rod
ends a while ago and never had it aligned afterwords, but this looks really
extreme. So what did I damage to cause that? Rack?
	The car was in few enough pieces (1) that I decided to drive it
home and it seemed pretty much the same. Maybe a little rougher ride (due
to the sway bar?) and when steering it seemed to want to keep going
whichever way it was pointed. ie. turn a little to the left, take your
hands off the wheel and it keeps going left. Is this because of the toe
out?  I think the brakes might also be making a very faint noise, but I am
not positive it wasn't there before. The impact was strong enough to trip
the inertia switch, which is good as it made me stop and check the damage
right away. I am really glad the tire didn't go flat because I left the
spare, the lug wrench and the lock back home safely tucked away in the
garage;)
	Where else should I look for other possible damage? Could anything
have happened to the spindle or a-arms? Can I just re-tap the sway bar/body
mount, slap on the spare and have it aligned? The car has front torsion
bars from a GTV6, 27mm sway bar and stock Spica shocks.

	One other pre-existing question I had been meaning to ask is what
the signs of a worn rack are? There is no slop at all in mine, but for the
last few months I have at times felt like the steering was sticking ever so
slightly. Like I had to exert a tiny bit more force on the wheel initially
to get it to rotate before it would move freely. This is while driving
~30mph. Maybe I imagined it, who knows, but it seemed to come and go. Sound
familiar, anyone?

'75 Obie (bruised ego;)
'78 Alfetta GT (bruised wheel)

P.S.-I found out that the spare I have does not match the wheel that was
damaged. The spare is a Campagnolo Campanatura (sp?) 45 I think, while the
other 4, (er 3 now) are Cromodora wheels, not quite so flat looking and
instead of having a slot between every spoke it has a slot between every
other spoke. Is there a name for the Cromodoras and does anyone have a
spare kicking around they want to get rid of?

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