If needed I'll shoot a little video. But here is what I found. The upper section is holding firm. I can grab the lower section just below the upper and move it, significantly. It looks to be moving inside the upper section. The top nut is tight (viewed in the front trunk), I don't see any movement there.

This is a shot of the passenger side. it is moving the most. The drivers side only moves slightly. Not enough to notice the rotor etc... moving like on this side. Of course it is the bumpy roads, turning in driveways, etc... that make the noises as I am driving.

Say the word and I'll shoot a video. You can hear the clanking.

Click to view attachment

The top part is just a dust cover and not really part of the shock.
Well, the top of the dust cover acts as a large washer against the rubber top mounts, so don't remove it permanently.

Anyways, if you unbolt the top of the shock and slide it down, there should be a threaded insert where the shaft comes out of the shock, which may have come lose and needs to be tightened again.
The shock could also be broken, in which case the shaft will have a lot of side to side movement even with the insert tightened down.

Oh, and only unbolt the large top shock nut!

Don't unbolt the plates holding the top in place unless you want to do a full alignment of the car anyways.

The nut inside the strut that Andy is talking about can come loose and if it loosens enough the strut will make a banging noise over bumps. I had to use a little Blue Loctite on mine, just for my piece of mind.

Then again it could be your ball joint.

John

I was aware of that.

Once the top nut is off, will I be able to move the control arm down far enough to get the shock (or strut) out of the upper plate (that I am not removing)? we are just talking about a few inches, right? It has been a couple years since I had this whole thing apart and my memory is just not that good.

Everything, and I mean everything is new. the total car has 7,000 miles on it. the ball joint could be bad, but I have zero movement at the bottom while shaking the top.

Yes you can compress the strut and lean it outside the fender to access the top nut. Just jack up that side of the car and the control arm will pivot downward.

It's easier if you remove the anti sway bar drop link on the side you are working on, but yes, pull it down and out of the fender.

A pipe wrench and some blue locktight may fix your problem.

Another successful repair. I am sure I would have found it as I got up the balls to start dismantling the shock.

once I got the top nut off and fiddled around to get the top cover off, I could easily see that the Dumb Ass mechanic (that would be me) did not get the large nut that holds the insert tight enough. I did add some thread lock and put the monkey wrench on it.

TA DA>>>>>>>
After tightening, before re-installing the upper sleeve.
Click to view attachment

Silver NUT that threads inside the lower tube is tight and had some lock-tite added.
Click to view attachment

Guess I better head out for a test drive now.

Thanks to all.

Clark

No sway bar on mine. Otherwise that is xackly how I did it. In the south we call it a monkey wrench and I read the label and went with the BLUE locktite... Red is permanent, blue is not and said something about eliminating "coming loose from vibration".

While I had both wheels off, I went ahead and tightened and lock-tited the drivers side too.

The test drive was nice, smooth and quiet over the bumps. No more rattle. Took some of the steering wheel vibration out too.

It's wonderful when it's quick and simple.