Hi all, my Ram has just started to get real noisy from the front end somewhere, due to all the pot-holed ice that's currently covering most of the roads here in the UK. The noise is resonating right through the whole shell at low speeds but gets quieter as speed builds up and is gone by
50mph. At slow speeds it sounds like someone's hammering the underside of the footwells with a large block of hardwood! I pulled it into the workshop yesterday afternoon and crawled under armed with a torch, a lever bar and a breaker bar and various sized sockets, expecting to find some play in the front beam axle upper and lower ball joints........ Well, no play in ball joints (axle weight taken on trolley jacks and big lever bar under wheel), all suspension and steering bushes appear good with no excess play, radius arm bushes ok, body-to-chassis bushes ok and bolts tight, props good, engine and gearbox mounts good. I found a slight bit of free play (approximately 1mm) in the front sway bar to chassis mounting bushes, yet the sway bar to axle links are good with no traceable play in the ball joints. I've ordered new bushes (and links anyway, to be sure) from an American company via the internet and I'll replace them as soon as they arrive here in the UK. Now, my question is this, would 1mm of free radial play in a sway bar bush really cause a noise that sounds like that described, even though the sway bar can only knock against rubber, not metal? I've been working on cars and Landrovers for over 25 years but I've never had this sort of noise be caused just by a rubber bush wearing slightly - unless it was worn to the extent that metal-to-metal contact could take place, and even then it would still make contact regardless of speed. If my diagnosis is wrong, does anyone have any ideas where I should be looking and what I should be checking next? Thanks, Badger.- posted
14 years ago