Suspension noise (possibly lower control arm)

[Jimmy Brooks]

I'm curious about your swaybar maintenance. I think I hear a slight squeak noise in the front right when off-roading but its so faint its hard to tell where its coming from. Were there any noises or symptoms that the swaybar end-links or bushings were going out?

Sway bar links are usually more of a knocking kinda noised. The sway bar mount bushings are more of a squeak. If you go under the car you should be able to see if they’re deteriorating or not. Some times they’ll be in such bad shape that you can pull the rubber apart just by picking at it with your hand. If you’re constantly off-roading it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.

It could also be control arm bushings, my rear upper control arms were making a squeaking noise pulling into driveways because the bushing was destroyed. When I replaced the arm it went away.

 

[Rover Range]

One way to verify if it is the front control arm, rear position bushing. Is to:
Drive about 10mph, let off the accelerator, rapidly apply and release the brake ped- several times. Clunking noise will be prominent.

 

[Jimmy Brooks]

getting the car up in the air tomorrow to verify that it’s the control arm. I’m already pretty confident that it is so I’m going through the motions in my head to ensure the work goes smooth. I have most of my tools with me but I did leave my impact wrench at home. So my question is, has anyone had an issue with the ball joint spinning?

Just trying to strategize how to overcome that hurdle so I can plan on getting the job done in one day.

 

[ugmw177]

never had the ball joint spin but if you do, you can put a hydraulic jack under the steering knuckle and put some pressure on it that will stop spinning until nut can be removed.

 

[Jimmy Brooks]

Got the truck up in the air today and couldn’t feel any play. Took a look underneath and the right strut bushing that connects to the lower control arm seemed to be a bit more crunched compared to the left so I put it in off-road height and took a look underneath and the bushing seems to be collapsed. It’s hard to see from photos but I’ll link a couple. From what I’ve researched this is not a serviceable part. Would hate to replace a whole strut over this small part.

I’m running aftermarket arnott struts but has anyone seen this before? Let me know if it looks collapsed.

 

[gsxr]

That does look highly sus. I wonder if there's any aftermarket bushing that could be pressed in to fix this? I agree, seems like a waste to replace the entire strut for only a worn bushing.

 

[Jimmy Brooks]

That does look highly sus. I wonder if there's any aftermarket bushing that could be pressed in to fix this? I agree, seems like a waste to replace the entire strut for only a worn bushing.

Yeah, I plan on looking into it as soon as I get some confirmation from here that the bushing does seem like the culprit. I'll try to reach out to arnott directly and see if they could help me out and just send me a replacement for $$. hopefully a shop wont charge me too much if i give them them strut itself and the bushing to press fit it.

funny enough the noise is still there but significantly less prominent now that i lifted the car up and set it back down on the ground. wonder if relieving the pressure helped the bushing settle a bit. I'm sure it'll come back in a week though.

 

[Jimmy Brooks]

So I did a bit more digging and decided that if it really was that bushing I could icolate it by lowering the suspension with the IID too and then putting it in access high to minimize movement in the actual strut itself and when I drove over the same bumps it barely made the noise. Put it back into normal height and it made the noise a lot more, so I do think something internally inside of the strut (most likely the dampening mechanism) has failed or is beginning to fail. The car still rides fine so I guess it’ll go on the list of summer maintenance. I still think it’s crazy that my rear air struts are original with 160k miles on them and now this will now be my third pair of front struts.

 

[powershift]

What brand air struts have you gone through in the front?

 

[16FujiDisco]

are the air struts rebuildable to replace the shock portion but not the air spring portion?