Struts That Go CLUNK In The Night, Curing a noisy front strut Options

[orthobiz]

So my daily driver developed an annoying clunk in the front driver side. A search here and on the Pelican board talks about a loose gland nut on the strut. Thought I'd just go through how I fixed it.

A couple of videos on YouTube:

Jumping up and down on the fender

With the wheel off

My garage is extremely echogenic so it sounds much louder than it does on the road! Annoying nonetheless.

Tools needed:
19mm socket
22mm socket
Giant pliers
Breaker Bar
Torque Wrench
Blue Locking Compound
Jacks, jack stands
Screwdriver, tamp or punch
Mallet

Paul

[orthobiz]

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This is the most key step of the whole process. Jacking up the bottom ball joint area will not fully deliver the strut up into the hole in your front trunk. The strut slowly collapses under the weight of the top strut cover and you can't push it up either. So, thread a metric bolt into the hole in the top of the strut. Perhaps your bolt is long enough to reach the hole in the trunk. Mine wasn't so t tied a wire around it and it was pretty easy to guide it up. For reassembly the washers and nut will slide over that small bolt and wire. I believe the inner diameter size of the strut is Metric Bolt 6 x 1.0.

BTW, I didn't realize this was the way to do it until I called Michael at Brad Mayeur's. Oh man, I don't want to talk about the frustration I had up until that point!

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Torque it up to 58 ft-lb, rebend the washer and you are done!
Torque the wheels, 108 ft-lb for steelies and 94 ft-lb for alloys. Problem solved, no more clicky clunks!

Hope this helps.