Henry said:
Again thanks.
How to check the sway bar busings?
Depends on how badly worn they are. If real bad, you can see that the
hole in the bushings are bigger than the diameter of the sway bar (i.e.,
you can move the sway bar up and down in them). But if they are only
slightly worn, they can still make thumping noises (the bar slapping
against the tops and bottoms of the holes) when hitting small pot holes
and other pavement irregularities. In this case, you may or may not see
any gaps in the holes, and you may or may not be able to tell by prying
up on the sway bar to check for looseness in the bushing holes.
The way I had to do it recently on my Concorde was by process of
elimination. There was obviously something causing the thumping. I
checked all other suspension parts (ball joints, rubber bushings, tie
rod ends, etc.) and could find nothing. The only other possibility was
struts and/or strut upper mounts, which are difficult to check. Even
though my tire/alignment shop told me they thought it was struts, I took
a small gamble and replaced the sway bar bushings because: (1) they were
a lot cheaper and easier to replace than struts, and (2) From various
internet forums, I learned that it was *very* common for the sway bar
bushings to need replacing on the LH cars (not sure about the vans, but
wouldn't be surprised to find it the case with them also).
Bottom line, I replaced them (I used graphited polyurethane bushings
because they should last the life of the car and are stiffer), and all
trace of suspension noise is gone.
So - if you get thumping and can find nothing else loose, replace the
sway bar bushings, especially if there's high mileage. Chances are
that's the problem. Certainly don't replace the struts before trying
them unless there's good reason otherwise to suspect the struts.
Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")
