Name that clunk?

Sounds like control arm bushings are bad. Mine did the same, it was so bad i could look under the jeep while moving in reverse, hit the brakes and see the axle move.

Sounds like control arm bushings or ball joints.

You think it's the upper control arms? The Rusty's arms are less than 6 months old. They were brand new when installed. The kit only came with lower arms. I haven't thought to check the uppers because I didn't touch them. I will have to check that this weekend. Is there any aftermarket bushings to be recommended or go with the stockers?

Thanks guys, now I can look forward to being in the cold garage this weekend. I'm trying to track this down before heading up to either Walker Valley or Evans Creek soon.

You need someone to put it into forward and then reverse while you look at the various suspension joints to see what's moving. If you can't see anything easily, put your hand on the various arms and links, you'll be able to feel what's moving. Most likely a loose control arm bolt or bad bushing, could be upper or lower.

You may also want to check U-joints. The driveshafts will turn before the control arms.

I had the same thing. The LCA bolts were loose. But as stated above it could be the CA bushings

It could be the LCA's, Have you checked the bolts on your steering box? I was feeling a clunk on my 91, turns out it was the steering box working its way off.

egotripp said:

You may also want to check U-joints. The driveshafts will turn before the control arms.

Click to expand...

U-joints have to be pretty bad before you'll get any clunk out of them, they'll usually come apart before then. Plus, he's most likely on the street in 2wd when feeling the clunk.

Ball Joints..... Just had same issue, clunk pop when brakes applied. thought was lcas so i swapped back to stock ones and it was a lot more quiet but still clunk. Jack up each tire and put a 2x4 with a wedge under them and check for up down movement.. This link helped me out a lot for i had never done ball joints before. Not as scary as they seem and i rented a press from autozone with the 4wd adapter set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3jjPouRdFw

Only a few things I can fault the person in that video for... first of all, he shouldn't have used a chisel to free the unit bearing, but at least he didn't use a hammer on the wheel flange. Second, he doesn't know how to use a torque wrench. That upper balljoint is NOT set to the proper torque, he was jerking on it too suddenly and wasn't getting a true torque reading (it is actually way looser than he has the torque wrench set for.) He also set at least two of the unit bearing bolts far below the torque he thought, one because he grabbed the beam on the torque wrench (throws the reading off on many micro beam torque wrenches) and the other because he didn't choose his ratchet position well and ended up turning the torque wrench back for another pull right before the desired torque was reached, so the wrench clicked trying to get the bolt moving again. The torque wrench only comes out in part 2, another video...

Other than that, a great video set.

Agreed on torque wrench but it does get the right idea going on. It definitely gave me more confidence in doing the job myself though.