Sometimes I wonder if my truck is out to get me...

[Jayman]

Seriously!!!

So lately I've been noticing that my front end feels a little "loose"... And i've also started hearing what most people would call "The typical Nissan front end clunk". Could be anything from ball joints, to front cross member needing to be retorqued, to sway bar bushings, to you name it...

At first, my suspicion was that the noise was coming from the front sway bar bushings, but it's gotten a bit worse in the past couple of weeks, so I decided to take a look at the front end this evening after work.

I jack up the truck, put it on the stands, and then start pulling on the tires to see if there is any play. I get a bit of movement, but I can't tell if it's just the steering wheel moving, or me thinking it's moving but it really isn't.

Anyways, I decide to take the tires off and further inspect everything. I get the tire off the driver side, and start monkeying around to see what I can find. Sway bar bushings on that side seems to be alright, no exessive wear that I can visably see, no play in the bar iteslf etc.

So now I start poking around and I notice my Upper ball joint looks a little *funny*... I say funy becase there appears to be an exessive amount of grease caked around the rubber gasket, and it just didn't look right to me. I give it a bit of a tug to see of there is any play, but I get nothing. The suspension was at full droop, and it still doesn't look right to me, so I decide to stick a jack under the LCA and compress the suspension a bit to try and get everything closer to it's normal resting angle (as in, truck on the ground), instead of at complete droop. A couple of pumps on the jack, and I get a bit of compression. I start pulling on the UCA again, and the whole ball joint pops up at least half an inch! Loose as a goose in a moose's caboose!

Great, so now I have to replace the ball joint in the driver side UCA. I hop over to the p-side, same thing. BOTH BJ's are completely SHOT. Not an overly expensive job (Napa sells lifetime warranty ball joints for about $70 a side), nor will they hard to replace, but a serious pain in the ass!

The kicker for me is that these ball joints are less then a year old! Of course, they came with my lift kit from AC, so I should have known they would be garabage from the start. If i recall, a LOT of people have to replace he garbage BJ's they get from various aftermarket companies...

So anyways, that is my current state... One thing after another, I swear. Off to Napa in the morning to get the ones from the Hardbody. Hopefully one of the shops close to me has them in stock!

Note: On a happier note, I installed my JWT pop-charger on Tuesday afternoon last week. Talk abut an easy install! 30 minutes in the driveway, stock air box out, now cone in. Done. More on that one later though...

[Scotto]

I've got the clunk, too. Not bad yet - just on hard turns over bumps. I climbed around this morning trying to figure out the EXACT same thing you did: sway bar bushings? CL? Ball joint? Nothing has come up yet.

It's a little annoying. But hey... we do stuff to our junk and then have to beef it up to make sure the stuff we did to it will stay attached.

The after-market shops must love it when they see a Nissan drive by with a lift and some tires. "Oohh, That guy will be in the store in a couple weeks. Let's see... Tie rod sleeves, ball joints, probably wrecked his shocks. And lights! Bet he's going to want lights. Wonder if he's done the CAI yet? Should I get that in stock? Oh!!! The center link. Better get him a couple of those! "


Scott

[HolidayNation]

She's not out to get you Jay, she just needs a little love, a lot..... Its better than having to go shoe shopping

[Jayman]

Lol...

Well, update. I picked up 2 new BJ's from Napa. $60 a side.

Hopefully I will have time to install them tonight. If not, I'll do them tomorrow.

After seeing how bad they were, I"m SUPER paranoid about driving the truck all things considered.

The sooner I can get them replaced, the happier I will be!

[Jayman]

I've got the clunk, too. Not bad yet - just on hard turns over bumps. I climbed around this morning trying to figure out the EXACT same thing you did: sway bar bushings? CL? Ball joint? Nothing has come up yet.

My clunk was the same, when turning, going over bumps (ie, backing down the driveway). Steering was NOT at lock, so I knew it wasn't the stopper caps.

One thing I did noticed though, was when the suspension is at full droop, it's impossible to tell if the BJ has any play in it. It's basically locked in. I had to compress the suspension a bit, get the BJ back into it's range of motion, to be able to actually see that it was shot.

At full droop, everything felt solid, so I don't know if that helps you any in trying to find your clunk.

[Scotto]

Yeah - right now it's a mystery.

I adjusted a tie rod last night, and cleaned out the Warn hubs. I even jacked the truck up to have a little peak at what might or might not be going on. All in all, looked great.

And that's all I did, as the beer was cold and the outside temp was nice and warm.

Guess what - the clunk is gone. It doesn't make any sense yet... The clunk should still be there, but it isn't.


Scott

[rtw_travel]

Guess what - the clunk is gone. It doesn't make any sense yet... The clunk should still be there, but it isn't.

There another source of 'clunk' in your truck. I had a clunk on sharp left turns when I first bought my X. (i.e. low speed full lock turns like when you are parking or turning around). When I greased & reinstalled the front wheel bearings, the clunk dissappeared.

...and Jayman, your're not being paranoid, your truck really is out to get you. Its happened before. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085333/plotsummary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

P.S. for those of you who keep track of these things, I leave Vancouver and take the X out of storage in Ontario this weekend. Hopefully there's no mice problems this year.

[Jayman]

So I picked up my replacement ball joints on Wednesday from Napa (turns out there were only $60, and not $70), and this morning was the only day that I had free to install them.

Of course it was raining.

No matter, have tarp and misc. cord, will still work on truck!



It's amazing the lengths that some of us will go to work on our trucks eh?

Anyways, got to work getting everything apart. Took me about 30 minutes to set up the tarp ( i re-did it twice, don't ask), and about 10 minutes to get the old ball joints out.





Beside the new one:



Yay, new Ball joints installed!:





Now, the new ball joints were different from the ones that I got with my lift kit from AC. The AC ones were greaseable ones, and they lasted me about 8 months. I did not wheel on them ONCE, and the majority of the mileage on them was actually done at PML height, and not the 3" lift height. My conclusion is that they were just garbage BJ's, and there's nothing I could do about it.

The Napa BJ's are sealed units, non-greasable, so we'll have to wait and see how they do. I expect that they will last considerably longer then the AC ones, but only time will tell.

Here's a little video of what causes the "clunk". Both Ball joints were the like this, the driver side was a bit worse then the P-side, but not by much!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrfzE4W_F3w[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrfzE4W_F3w

[Wildpix]

So why did it take 30 min. to set up the tarp twice?????????????

[Jayman]

Oh you had to, didn't ya? Jerk!

[Wildpix]

Yup, I did. You knew somebody would.

[HolidayNation]

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?

[Jayman]

Ok fine...

The first time I set it up, I was using a ladder instead of tying it to the roof. Well, that didn't work out so well (the ladder fell over onto my dad's car), so I had to redo it.

Then the second version of my set-up, it barely covered my work area, so I had to adjust it...

There, I told you.