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Bent frame

11K views 54 replies 10 participants last post by  shadetree 
#1 · (Edited)
I have a 2012 Honda 420 with all the bells and whistles, EPS, IRS, Auto, it hit a telephone pole with the right front tire, wheel is shot, and it will turn hard to the left and barely to the right (I think or vice-versa) and the EPS light is on now. I did some measuring last nite from wheel to wheel and each front wheel to the same spot. I think I have a bent frame.

Any ideas at all on this? this bike has about 500 miles on it. would the easiest thing to do is just adjust the tie rods to count for how much its bent or what.

thanks in advance for any help yall can do.
 
#2 ·
first welcome to the site, the best thing to do is turn it into your insurance , IMO
second I doubt adjusting the tie rods will solve much here, your going to have more than them needed to correct things,m as there not going to correct anything that is bent
you could have drive live issue's and other things wrong
its hard to say from just your above, Id get it all up off the ground and look a lot closer at things and see for sure
and if you DON"T have insurance, this is a good example to others why you should (sorry sure not what you want to hear)
 
#3 ·
Hey, he made it!

This is my buddy who lives a little north of me.

I had him measure yesterday and center of rear wheel to center of front wheel on the left is 51 inches. Center of rear wheel to center of front wheel on the right is 48 inches (kid hit the pole with the right front wheel).

Lower a-arm rear mounting point on the right side is about 1.5 inches further back as well.

If I had to guess, it's going to be like my Foreman that my sister wrecked. Frame was pushed to the left and up a little.

I was able to get it to track straight and it worked fine, but I eventually swapped frames because the crooked front bumper and rack irritated my OCD.

Anyone here have any luck tweaking a frame back in place by strapping it down and using a winch or big pry bar? I've got a heavy (probably weighs 50lbs) solid steel prybar that's about 6 feel long. If I had to guess it's an old railroad tool. I wondered if we couldn't wedge that in there and get it back closer to straight. It will never be perfect again for sure without swapping the frame out.
 
#5 ·
I have the same issue with a 450 foreman, your damage sound very much like mine. If you look and measure carefully you’ll notice the frame may be twisted. The differences are quite noticeable between the lower main frame tubes (longitudinally) and the frame tubes that house your lower steering stem bearing. Unfortunately for me my steering stem is also twisted just above the splines/pitman arm.
 
#6 ·
jeep, when I started reading the OP's post ?, I knew right off the bat who this was !..lol. you just brought this up a day or so ago..lol. OP, getting the frame right will be tough, unless you have a machine large enough like they do cars and trucks with ?, your going to have a hard time getting the frame straight. it can be done, but it won't be easy !. if I was you ?, i'd be looking for another frame.
 
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#7 ·
I don't think a pry bar is the way to go, maybe some body shop can use some hydraulic's to un bend as it will work better IMO
as for framed being straightened out, they can, and on an atv maybe not as critical as other things, but you do run the risk of having weakened sections as once things bend they are never as strong and more you bend them weaker things get
many times the better way to fix is cut off bad section/s and replace with good sections, but would need a donor frame
and well if you have that , maybe less work to just sway whole frame to have it RIGHT again!
or again, back to Insurance, odds are they will total it out, get the cash, maybe buy it back and then fix(part it out or keep as a parts machine, if deal works out,
or use cash to just get a new atv's, or one like it and have the old for a parts machine

I know its not a great call, but bent frames, can be very annoying in my experience and things never tracking right again, and my silly simple mind always worry's about what else got damaged that I didn;t notice? peace of mind has its own value to me, but its everyone's own call on what there comfortable with!
 
#9 ·
I agree the time and effort to try and fix a bent frame seldom pays off, I just threw out the suggestion as food for thought
I insurance claim the sucks, take what I get and go from there, but gathering the fellow didn;t have any on it, so? he is trying to resolve things as cheap and easy as he can (not bashing here saying this either )
swapping over to a whole new frame is not a small task many want to do, thus why I said, maybe better to buy a like model and keep this one for parts
might be an easier deal overall, not maybe better, but easier!
sunk atv's are common and he has a good motor and trans now so LOL and sunk atv's seldom have bent frames, some even be almost like new when they go swimming HAHA!
 
#10 ·
Just wondering how you hit a poll so hard it bent the frame, without bending the tie-rod as well?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk
 
#11 ·
from what I have seen ?, those trx420's have a very weak front a-arms where they attach to the frame area for bolts. its not hard to hit anything with the front wheels, and push the a-arms inwards or sideways..and not bend the frame. honda made these frames very badly.
 
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#15 ·
My 500 was the same way. A arms were fine, tie rod was bent, but the frame was twisted up and to the left (right front hit a tree at about 30mph).

I lived with it for a couple of years until I found a cheap good frame.

Basfnb has a customer who has a body shop and said he could straighten it out for a couple hundred bucks, so he's going to do that.

Then he'll be back on here trying to figure out why the power steering light won't go off. LOL
 
#16 ·
I'm late to the party... but I fixed a 350 Rancher frame a couple years ago that had been in a bad wreck. The upper and lower A-arms on the left side got bent so I replaced both of them with a used set. I put all four new ball joints in as well, because I figured they might be bent on the left side too.

The left side upper a-arm bracket on the frame (rear one) was wrapped around the frame tubing where it was welded on, so I disassembled the right side completely, then tied the frame down to a big 1/2" plate of steel that I had in my scrap metal pile, using ratchet straps. Then I put a small hydraulic bottle jack between the frame rails, slid a scrap length of rod into the twisted bracket holes and started pushing on that bracket with the jack. Within 15 minutes (jacking just a bit at a time and pausing to measure) I had it back in perfect alignment. I used an old caster/camber gauge (from the early 1960's) to compare the left & right knuckle angles after the a-arms were put back on (no shocks yet) and both sides were perfect matches to the service manual specs.

It can be done, just takes a lot of prep time, an assortment of scrap metal to scrounge through and lots of careful measurements.
 
#18 ·
Yeah, the EPS has a torque sensor on the stem and if it gets twisted by an impact its spun out of time permanently and its completely junk. Gotta replace the shaft in those at a minimum. And it usually hammers out more than the shaft, cause those EPS units are built chintzy. I'd replace with used before I'd waste any money on trying to fix one that took an impact.
 
#20 · (Edited)
I hope he gets lucky and its easy to correct. He probably won't know much more about it until the tie rods are adjusted (bars straight) for proper toe. Then if the stem is twisted internally he won't be able to reinitialize the torque sensor per the manual... it'll throw a code and disable itself. They work great while they work, but take way too much $$$ to fix IMO.
 
#30 ·
update on bent frame..

went out there today and turns out it was not a bent frame...the lower A arm is twisted, he tried to torque on it some, the right tie rod was bowed (I missed it) he bent back out the tie rod and it turns fine now.... he drove it and he said it drives fine, the boot is torn (but I think it already was), I haven't driven it yet, have to pick it up this afternoon, I did turn the wheels while it was just sitting out there...the steering seems stiffer but I wont know until I actually get on it...the steering light is still on.... I will probably unhook the battery cable and rehook it to see if it goes off..... but its not a bent frame...it drives fine for what I am going to be doing and will end up replacing A arm, tie rod, and prolly just replace that whole axle instead of the just the boot....
 
#36 ·
Yall should see what he did to his Rubicon oil filter cover when he stripped the head and couldn't get it off......

:icon_ rofl:

I'll give credit where it's due. He's the ONLY one who shows up when work on the trails needs to be done, and since he moved about 40 miles north of home he's gotten pretty good at wrenching on his own stuff.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Some of jeep's stories reminded me of some of mine. i got a 73 cuda, an had it for just a few years. the gas pedal was always hard to push with the double pumper holley. a vaccume leak somewhere.it got 15mph on the open, road, but only 7-8 mpg in the city, or suburbs. it had a 3/4 cam, best i could figure out, without knowing any thing. anywho;
that car pulled to the right, on my left are would get tired, after a while. i finally decide to take it to the alignment shop, after a couple of years. it was winter, snow was on the roads, the 12's didnt get much traction, but were better than the 15's...
not being use to the alignment, so i went to push a different channel button, on the radio, looked at the radio, next thing i knew, i was going off the road, an heading over a ditch. it wasnt that deep, but when i hit the gas to straiten up. the posi-traction, spun me at a 90 degree angle, just before i hit the road covert. at a 4 way, they got concrete walls around the converts. they dont stick up much, but do stick up enough to catch your car an flip it on the side. was only going 40 because of the snow. [ever heard this before]. anyway it caught my car just behind the front seats, ripped out the floor board, an while it was on its side, i could walk through the floor board, an out the back window. was a bit of bending, as i was at least taller than some of it. i exited, through the floor board, behind the front seats. asked a home owner, if they would call the police, when back to my car, to wait. while there, i went back through the floorboard, an out the back windshield. ?? Because it was an opportunity, that i hoped i would never have the, chance to do again.. how many other people can say they went through the same thing??
when the cops came, i told them, a dog had run out in front of me, because it was to embarrassing to say, i was changing radio channels. sometimes i just say what they want to hear. truth is stranger that fiction, i guess. cops dont believe ya anyway. ed
is this the right thread? :grin
 
#44 · (Edited)
kids today, dont know how to shift. hate to see them, with a steep hill an a clutch. the 55 chevy truck, had a floor starter. even when i drove it, i didnt worry about, as much as i could, about someone stealing it, even back in the 80's, not so many knew what a floor starter was. my little sister learned how to shift with my mgbgt. i thought her how to do it, gave her the keys, when back inside the house, so as not to hear the gears, grinding, and let her have at it. just back in forth in the drive way. She learned well enough. grinding wernt all that bad. least she had something that shifts easy. later on some in life, couple of decades, when her son, was learning near the same thing. i have to ask which car it was, to tell the story...
i had forgot about the steering on those old things. 2 turns left, or 2 turns right.. rack an pinion, sure made a difference.
 
#43 ·
For everyone else, the other guy owns a hardware store that sells Husky.

I got his next-to-last NOS 346. He knocked 10% off, and when I asked him if he'd cut me the same deal on the last one and he hemmed and hawed around about it. Then I decided to buy it at retail I liked mine so much, and he'd already sold it.:sad
 
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