[danege]

Ive had a bit of a clunk in my right front suspension area for a little while now, it didnt bother me much (well it did but not enough to fix it.) But recently i hit the worlds biggest pot-hole and it made it heaps worse.

Symptoms:

Clunking whenever hitting the tiniest bump / hole / whatever.
It clunks the loudest when turning left and hitting a bump.
It clunks when i take my foot off the brake after ive stoped (sometimes).
It clunks when turning reasonably hard left.

Its not a continuious clunking, it does it once per bump / turn..but its rather loud.

I dont have any idea about suspension components or anything, but i jacked her up and had a look and there are three things that i could think that it might be. Ill attach pics to what i think it might be.

Thanks in advance.

 

[not ford]

Its probably your lower ball joint, they take a lot of punishment its the last photo. Jack the car up about 2" to take some of the load off the suspension. Then grip the top and bottom of the wheel and wiggle the wheel. If it wiggles 99.99% of the time it will be the lower ball joint. You can normally see it move.

There about $30 each and you need a press to put them in. I take the stub axle assembly out then smash the lower ball joint out with a heavy hammer then get a suspension shop to press the new ones in for $50. I do both sides always with suspension because doing ONLY one side is bodgy.

If you grab it on the sides then wiggle it that way and it wiggles its normally the tie rods.

 

[EBV8]

check the shocks aswell
my car did a similar thing and found it was the shock absorber
did the shocks and no probs now
also check top shock mounts
the studs to the strut tower can snap pretty easy but i would assume if they snapped you would know about i straight away

 

[danege]

I took it into tafe and we had a look. We found out it was the upper inner controll arm bushes...they were perished so im going to buy some more and put them in....thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Martin]

The tie rod doesnt look much chop in that pic (2nd one)
If the ball joints are original then they'll need replacing also. (they cant take much more than 100k kms)