Front End Clunks

[Darringer, Chris]

In my experience, clunking sounds that appear while parallel parking point
to strut bearings, since these bearings are especially important for large
steering wheel turns.  Strut bearings are usually replaced with the struts -
mine went bad after 100k miles.

Clunking sounds that come up when the car is moving in a straight line, on
slightly uneven pavement, with no pressure from turning, accelerating, or
braking, may point to a loose ball joint.  This happened recently on my car.
It can be difficult to pinpoint, since lifting the car introduced pressures
which make reproducing the problem difficult.

Knowing that your control arm bushings have been replaced, the slight
clunking sounds that comes with braking, acceleration, and turning might
point to loose control arm bolts.  These bolts need to be torqued very hard.
Some people suggest using two nuts and retightening them after driving for a
day or two with the new control arm bushings.

You really need to get completely under the car to see everything, and you
are going to want to push/pull things pretty hard without worrying about the
car falling off jackstands... I would recommend finding someone that would
be willing to help you get your car on a lift.  Start pulling and pushing
things to try and reproduce the sound.  Make sure all the nuts and bolts you
see are tight.

Chris
'90 80q
Currently clunk-free

--__--__--

Message: 1
Reply-To: "Brandon Rogers" <brogers at terrix.com>
From: "Brandon Rogers" <brogers at terrix.com>
To: <quattro at audifans.com>, <BLUDODGER at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Front End Clunks
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 09:36:32 -0700
Organization: Terrix Financial Corporation

You may have already gotten your answers by now, but ...I recently cured a
clunk in my suspension that persisted depsite new C-arm bushings, good ball
joints etc.  I have G60 brakes and there are 2 springs that help secure the
pad, one of them was not properly seated behind the caliper.  The spring was
visible as part of it was poking out a hole in the caliper.  Fixed this and
the clunk was gone.  The clunk at sharp turn sounds like a strut bearing,
from what I understand.  I'm no expert, I just know what fixed my clunk.

Brandon
'84 urquattro