ismokerice

My car is 94Z28 A4, about 6mo ago I hit a curb sliding sideways, and hit it hard. Initial damage I found was both pass. wheels broken/bent, pass. front lower a-arm, spindle, and hub bent, pass. front swaybar mount broken(where it bolts to frame), and drivers front lower a-arm broke clean off at rear bushing. It sat on stands for a couple months while I saved up $$ and gathered parts.

Got the 98+ front a-arms, spindles, hubs, and brakes from a junkyard, doner car supposedly had 30k miles on it. I replaced all bushings/ball joints/hardware/etc with new moog parts. Bought 4 eagle wheels w/ tires from board member. I couldn't afford to get the wheels rebalanced but I got an alignment from cheap local "quick lube" shop.

After just under $900 in parts car seemed fine, for about a week. Then a nasty grinding sound slowly developed at pass. rear wheel, a friend was following me and noticed the wheel wobbling. The axle was bent and slowly got worse and worse, the noise was the rotor grinding on the caliper bracket as it wobbled. I got driver's side axle shaft off of a 96T/A again at junkyard, I called all over town and could only find one, and it seemed to be exactly the same so I used it on my pass. side.

Everythings been just fine for 3-4 months, but I noticed that same sound growing again. I had a friend drive it while I followed and sure enough wobbly wheel again, this time it's the drivers side. My sister's cavalier is in the garage waiting on a new tranny, so I can't get my car in the air for about a week. I did pull the wheel and take a look, but couldn't tell anything except that the rotor has the same grind marks on one high spot like before.

Could a bent or out of balance wheel effect the rotor like that, or is it definitely the axle? I can't think of any bump or anything I've hit to have bent it recently. Is it possible that it bent ever so slightly 6mo ago and has just gotten worse very slowly? Do you think it could be caused by bent axle tube, or some other part?

Which brings me to the 2nd part of this. Could I manage a complete chassis inspection in my home garage without any special tools? I know how to check ball joints/bearings/tie rods and such for play but what about the "straightness" of a part, or runout on wheels/hubs/axles. Would a level or straight edge like is used in carpentry be close enough to tell if say my torque arm/PH rod/axle tubes/etc are straight or bent? How would you check the axle shafts? Last time you could tell it was bent by looking at it, but this time isn't near as bad, atleast not yet. Any tips, tricks, maybe even some online instructions along these lines would be great.