My Suspension Clunk FIXED!

I've had a slight clunk in my drivers side suspension for sometime was getting worse and worse over time. I pulled out the shock assembly tonight in hopes of trying to isolate the problem. There's been a lot of talk about the tension struts, sway bar links and the sway bar bushings lately, so I thought I'd take a good look at those.

I went through everything and found nothing. No worn or torn bushings, loose nuts or anything else in the wheel well until I grabbed onto the upper control arm and started yanking on it. I was able to move the thing side to side and duplicated the noise by hand.

I raised the coolant reservoir and to my surprise, I could almost turn the nut by hand off the bolt. I never figured one of the two nuts I've never turned on the suspension would end up being the issue, but it was. I tightened her up, got everything back together and went for my first clunk-free drive in a long time.

Symptoms of this were occasional clunking on bumps, applying the brakes into low speed uphill turns, and hard turns. If you've got a clunk like this, it's worth giving this a check.

Here's the location of the play I discovered:





And like I mentioned, the nut to tighten this is behind the coolant reservoir. There's also another nut on the opposite side of the shock tower. Both need to be tightened to 55 FT Pounds.

Good info right there!

I'm gonna take a look at mine now. I hear a clunk on hard bumps from the front. Being a front end guy (alignments, replacing front end parts, etc.) at the shop, it REALLY bugged me I couldn't find the problem. I checked EVERYTHING too!!! Well, I thought I did LOL Good info, thanks Matt!!!!

I have a loud bang under braking...turns out it is lower control arm bushing kinda funny the guy at the body shop told me it was the lateral arm but did research and it is actually called the lower control arm lol

I have 1 question though are the lower control arms hard to replace...is this something I can do? It is the forward ones not the rearward...

I get confused with all the different names for the front suspension parts, but it sounds like you are talking about, what I call, the tension struts? If so then the are pretty easy to change out, I'd have to look again, but I think it was just two bolts each.

bill

Yeah it said something about being careful with the bolt that comes out of the engine cradle so was debating on if I should mess with it or not because it deals with the alignment....Another question why does it say not to spray carb cleaner into the intake?

Yeah the front of the C looks different then both of those there is 2 forward control arms and 2 rearward on the front end....

I guess they call them tension struts in the srm, lateral arms at the body shop and forward lower control arms when you order them online...crazy shit

Wow the srm is crazy I was looking at it and it shows tension strut and lower control arm both but they look exactly the same wtf I ordered the moog lower control arms forward hope it is the right part!!!

I would change everything you are planning on changing, then go get an alignment. If I remember correctly, one end of the tension strut has a slotted hole with a super secret bolt that is used for alignment, so when you pull it out, it needs to be re-adjusted. I've taken my car up to Adam's shop for an alignment a few times now, he'll take care of you.

bill

http://www.300cforums.com/forums/attachments/suspension-handling-modifications/34204d1256946754-front-rear-suspension-diagram-tension-strut3.jpg

the control arm bolts to the shock assembly... I think.

The tension strut bolts to the spindle.

i was just posting those documents for reference... the design on each car will be different, but the components are still the same, and you get a basic general idea of what you're looking at...