Snow Froze/Messed My Bird

[confusedperson]

In case you guys didn't know, late on the 24th of December, South Texas got some snow. The news said it had been around 86 years since snow had fallen, at least in Victoria, TX.

It was like a dream come true for me (cuz I never seen snow before). I live way south though, near McAllen, TX. Even though we didn't get that much snow, we still managed to scrape the snow off of cars and have a little snow fight. It was awesome, we even made little snow men, which later exploded with leftover firecrackers from 4th of July!

Well anyways, I was going for a drive at this time (when snow was falling, so it must have been in the 20's Deg F). I turned on my 1995 4.6 V8 Tbird and let it warm for about 5 mins. When I accelerated more than 20-30mph my Tbird would brake on me a bit from the driver's side wheel, and I could hear a rattling kind of sound from the driver's side wheel. I could even feel the rattling vibration through the brake pedal. It appears that the only thing that the snow/cold did to my car dealt with the wheels/brakes and nothing else, well my temperature LED reads 43 F even though it's in the 70's F.

This has never happened before. It just began occuring, when the cold and snow came around. Is there something in my Tbird that could easily have frozen over, like the brake pads, etc. What should I check for? What should I replace? I'm no car guru, but I'll try and do anything neccesary to fix the problem especially since now we only have one working vehicle out of four.

I don't know if this will help describe my problem more, but the Tbird a few months ago started to squeak when I would turn the steering wheel either direction as though two metals would scrape each other. That's about all I know of it. Maybe potholes shook something loose.

I would appreciate any suggestions or comments. Thanks!

[thunderbird muscle]

Its possible that the extreme cold busted a hose of some sort, but I don't know other then that.

[RickwithaTbird]

Check all your bushings, make sure they arent torn. And check your power steering fluid as well. Do you change your own oil? because if so, you need to have the suspension lubed. I used to change my own oil until a ball joint fell off, because I learned I was neglecting the bushings. they need grease with every oil change.

[J_ROC812004]

well i would go and have my ball joints struts checked out if i was u. that is just what it sounds like to me. and trust me u don't want a ball joint to fall out on u when u are going down the road at 60-70 mph.

[confusedperson]

Well I'll be checking the bushings today like RickwithaTbird had said, hopefully everything is ok.
If so, then I'll just follow J_ROC812004's advice and have the ball joints checked out.

Thanks for the replies, now I know the general area of the problem.

[RickwithaTbird]

Originally Posted by J_ROC812004

well i would go and have my ball joints struts checked out if i was u. that is just what it sounds like to me. and trust me u don't want a ball joint to fall out on u when u are going down the road at 60-70 mph.

you absolutely dont... Im lucky, mine fell out while I was entering a parking lot at 5 mph... put a huge gash on the inside of my rim... see the car just kinda falls onto the inside of the rim... at 70 mph... omg, I dont even wanna imagine... I still consider myself very lucky that it didnt happen on the highway, because I had just gotten off it.

[J_ROC812004]

definetly mine fell out at 30 and it wasn't fun. i am thinking on a main highway u could flip or roll in a heartbeat

[RickwithaTbird]

yeah I was thinkin you could flip too, but I didnt wanna say it and feel stupid. 30?! sheesh... how did that go?

[J_ROC812004]

not very good i am lucky mine didn't drop all the way out until i had it on the tow truck lol so i think i got lucky too