What are the symptoms of worn out suspension bushings? I amtrying to decide whether or not they need replacement. I get occasional klinks and klanks on rougher roads and sometimes on a full turn of the steering wheel. Otherwise, everything seems tight. What are other things that could cause suspension noise?

Nick

The gland nut (large nut with a hole through it) holding your shock inserts into your struts could be loose. Both of mine worked their way loose (which is about five complete turns) after a year or so of driving.

Someone posted a thread on how to tighten them.

You notice this problem when your wheel drops down into a hole and then clanks when coming back up. Otherwise there is weight on the shock and you don't really notice the problem.

There are other possible culprits, like worn out ball joints or bearings.

You should be able to detect those by jacking the car up and grabbing the wheel at the top and bottom. If you can move the top and bottom of the wheel back and forth then your bearings or ball joints are worn out.

John

I saw some wear on my front torsion bars from the bushing sagging allowing them t rub on the bars.

You can also look at them from the end and see the sag.

Johns talking about something different. Pete is spot on with the fronts. For the rears you can look for degradation around the mount or, if you have the arms off you can measure the sag (distance between the top of the rod and the edge vs the bottom of the rod)

The fronts will sag like that and as Pete mentioned, they tend to wear the paint off the torsion bars.

Ive torn a few of these down and all of them have the rear rubber A arm bushings sagged to the point the torsion rods rub the housings.
Some to the extent they will have cut a grove in the Bar.
Ive heard stories of Torsion bars breaking and I imagine that this is probably a contributing factor.
The (A arm) fronts dont seem to collapse like the rears.

If they've never been addressed, they're worn out...