93 Villager Front End Knock

[mmcpeck]

Hi, I have a 93 Villager which is making a very noticeable clunking noise on both sides of the front end when it hits any kind of bump.

I inherited the car with 127K on it, the front struts were original and were shot, I don't know how long they were driven on like that, but I imagine the rest of the front suspension took a beating being driven with those bad struts in there.

I figured I would start there and put the struts in. I looked around at everything else while I was doing the struts and found nothing else loose that could be making the noise. The control arms were tight as was the stabilzer.

The new struts helped slighlty, since the suspension doesn't flex as much now, but not really all that much and it is still clunking pretty bad, and also has a creaking/scraping type of sound on bigger bumps and dips, not anything bottoming out, just the suspension making noise.

I can only assume the bushings are shot on everything, but would that make things knock/creak around?

I have seen this problem posted on other boards for Quest/Villagers, but have never seen any answers on it, is this common for early Quests/Villagers?

Could this be the ball joints making noise?

I have also noticed that when you first put it into gear, like into Reverse when backing out of the driveway, it will make a clunking sound when your foot comes off the brake. And also when I stop at a stop sign or something and let my foot off the brake and step on the gas, I get the same clunking.

I can step on the brake and let off, over and over again as I idle down the road and get it to constantly make this clunking noise.

But I have also noticed that when I'm stepping on the brake and hit a bump, the noise doesn't happen. This is really racking my brain.

Thanks for any help, it drives me crazy to go down the road with this suspension clunking all over.

[mmcpeck]

Think I may have answered my own question with a little more thinking and prying. I remembered I had a similar issue on my Pathfinder, and it was the front stabilzer links, this sounds very similar to that, so I went out and took another look at the end links, and see the bushings are shot and have a good amount of play in them. So they are definitely sloppy over bumps.

Also searched around this forum a bit and found some similar posts, where these links seem to be the problem. Gonna give that a shot.

Any other ideas are welcome though.

Thanks.

[steamplant]

endlinks, easy to do $40/each

[1nell]

Are end links the same as the section that holds the ball joints? Picture of the links?

[steamplant]

The stabilizer bar endlinks attached the stabilizer bar to the control arm. go to autozone and ask for them, then search this forum for endlinks I think there is a procedure for replacement or check this site http://abra.homestead.com/villager.html

good luck, let us know how you make out

[1nell]

OK, great site. A picture is worth a thousand words. Now I know.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by steamplant

The stabilizer bar endlinks attached the stabilizer bar to the control arm. go to autozone and ask for them, then search this forum for endlinks I think there is a procedure for replacement or check this site http://abra.homestead.com/villager.html

good luck, let us know how you make out

[mmcpeck]

OK, I replaced the stabilzer end links, which was a problematic job. For some reason or another the links were going into the control arms at a pretty sharp angle, rather than at a 90 degree angle, so getting them out took some prying, but getting the new ones in was the real issue.

The angle was so sharp that it was tough to get the bushing on since the link bolt was so close to the edge of the control arm and it was impossible to get the new washer on the bolt altogether. I had to use a C clamp and squeeze the stabilizer bar down towards the control arm to crush the top bushing, then I was able to squeeze the bottom bushing on the bolt, but no matter what I did, there was no clearance for the washer, so I had to use some smaller washers that I had laying around, that would fit in the space between the bolt and the edge of the control arm and that did the trick on both sides.

The driver side was much harder and I actually noticed that the stabilzer was in a different position on that side, there was much less cleaarance between the stabilizer bar and the body of the car, in fact it looked like it had scraped the body of the car at some point, the pass side I could fit my whole hand in between the bar and body. Thinking there may have been some front end damage at some point.

Also while I was in there and squeezing on the stabilizer bar, I realized that the control arms were both loose in their rear bushing, and squeaking around, I could actually move them around with my hand and get them to squeak and/or knock on both sides. I can still hear this noise while driving, although the fornt end is much quieter while driving, it's only very big bumps or dips where you can hear the control arm scrape or knock due to those rear bushings.

Can the bushings themselves be replaced on these control arms or do the entire arms need to be replaced?

Thanks.

[vgb14]

I've heard that the front control arm rear bushings can be replaced with those from a 92 Maxima. I believe the part # is 54570-85E01, but please confirm this.