Re: Thumping suspension

["Toby Peterson" <tobyp@xxxx>]

Aaron - The first place that I would look would be the rubber bushings 
that connect the front sway bar to the front lower control arms. The 
bushings are known to deteriorate, which lets the sway bar thump and 
rattle against the lower control arms. The stock rubber bushings are 
relatively cheap (under $5 each) so they are not too painful to 
replace. The major symptoms that I found when my bushings failed were 
lack of control during heavy braking ... the car twitched 
side-to-side, and also a "twitchy feeling" at highway speeds, caused 
by caster variations in the front wheels. These bushings hold the 
lower control arms (LCA's) in position (forward and aft), and when 
they allow movement, the caster is contantly varying. You can access 
the rearmost bushings by removing the nuts that thread onto the ends 
of the sway bar where it pokes through the LCA's. The forward pair of 
bushings can be viewed after you remove the front sway bar. Check 
those out, and let us know what you find.

Toby Peterson VIN 2248
Winged1 


-- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "aaron_t_graham" <aaron_t_graham@xxxx> 
wrote:
> My suspension has been making thumping and "boingy" noises in the
> front (mostly driver's side, I believe) for a couple of months now. 
> I'm trying to determine what exactly is causing the noise and how I
> can fix it.
> 
> The noise most often happens when I stop hard. However, there is a
> spot in the road near where I live that dips down just a little bit
> right before a stop sign (so I'm always slowing down at that point),
> and it almost always makes a noise there, no matter how slow/fast 
I'm
> going/stopping. The suspension doesn't seem to like that spot very
> much.