Front end clunk

[krusing]

Exactly right. Everything is well worn after 10 or 15 years on the road.
See if this pic works but you can't miss the big bolts holding the front end of the car together. You see them from under the car View attachment 218020

Exactly,
I checked mine,
and they are torqued up to 80nm
So I am guessing the Rack is r_____d

 

[Pollushon]

They were OEM from Holden fitted myself. Not ideal but still plenty secure

 

[Vonrottes]

Just an update on mine.
Been busy with work and it's been too cold on the weekends to mess with it.. but Saturday morning after work I popped the hood and checked the sway bar bushings, after noticing it was really bad while going slowly over uneven wavy pavement *not potholes.

I can confidently say those are my noise right now. Just looking at them from the engine bay with a flashlight at 4am I could see the swaybar has been walking side-side a lot, and there seems to be a good 1-2mm gap between the bar and the rubber bushing ID.. going to run check the local places to see if they have Energy suspension poly bushings or even the OE rubber.

Hopefully this helps someone else

 

[krusing]

May I suggest go with SuperPro,
I have heard it's the way to go,
I have the dreaded gowning and cluck, and I noticed a similar thing of movement for the sway bar
So I have ordered replacement Sway Bar Bushes [PolyPro this time around] , just waiting for them to arrive.

 

[Vonrottes]

Second update, noise fixed.
Was the sway bar bushings.

Replaced them with "universal" greasable poly bushes. Have also noticed a slight improvement in the handling, feels more stable at highway speeds.
Thanks for the help my dudes.

 

[Fu Manchu]

.

 

[krusing]

I have also fixed mine last week,
Replaced the OEM Sway Bar bushes with SuperPro,

Nice and Quiet again,
Next thing to do is check on the Tower Top Bearings,
I did replace them with SuperPro, some time ago
But need to double check them, as there is groaning in that region when the wheels are turned.
[Personally I didn't think there was enough grease in them]

 

[carcollector]

Glad that the noises are getting fixed. I've found two other sources of "front end" noises on our WM.

The first was that the suspension place that replaced all of the front end bushes a while ago put the new front sway bar struts on the wrong sides. On the VE, they are a left and right set, not identical, even though they look almost identical. I suspect the range of movement in the rod ends is different between the left and right struts, causing them to clunk if they are put in the wrong side. I put up with it for a while as the suspension place kept saying that it was the urethane D bushes they fitted (even though I asked for rubber ones) and they regreased them a few times. When it got too annoying I bought new sway bar struts, and while taking the old (still newish) ones off, I realised that the part numbers didn't match the new ones. Yep, the right side had been installed on the left, and left side had been installed on the right. Oh, they fractured one of the D bush mount studs too, and it fell off soon after getting the suspension work done. It was the stud that is welded onto the crossmember. I was quoted $800 to get it fixed by replacing the whole crossmember. Nup. Drilled it out from underneath with the car up on jack stands, tapped and threaded the hole and screwed in a grade 8 bolt in its place - good as new. Fiddly job, but cheaper than $800.

The second was the gearbox mount. I could hear a fairly loud clunk when driving, but only when the car was cold. I too went looking for a lot of causes of the noise before I found it, replacing a fair bit of stuff. I eventually found it by pushing hard up against the front of the tailshaft. That pushed the transmission up, and caused a loud clunk. when I replaced the trans mount, the noise disappeared. I think the mount had softened with age, and the metal part of the mount that bolts to the trans was hitting the metal part of the mount that bolts to the crossmember. It was quite a loud clunk - it sounded like the transmission was actually hitting the floorpan, but it wasn't.

I hope this helps others out.