93 Lumina Euro Suspension Clunk

[nate93lumina]

Hello, 

So for the life of my I cant figure this noise out. The vehicle went over a parking stop at 10 mph and slightly bent the d/s front sway bar. Front strut cartridges were replaced about 2 years ago. I just put a new (used) 34 mm sway bar with new bushings, engine/trans mount replaced 3 years ago, and I just replaced the rear subframe bushings. Any ideas? Maybe the spring insulator? Thanks in advance.

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by nate93lumina
Added embed video

[digitaloutsider]

Have you tried jacking the car up and grabbing the wheel and shaking it to see if anything moves?

[vipmiller803]

I don’t know if that’s your noise, but I see play in the ball joint.

[oldmangrimes]

Yeah it does look like the ball joint has too much movement.   I did almost the same things you did on my 95, focusing on struts/shocks/bushings/swaybars, but I didn't change the balljoints until it was too late and one broke on me at speed and caused a bunch of damage, luckily nobody got hurt.     It clunked a little before failing, but I don't know if it's the same sound you have or not.    Ball joints aren't expensive, but it is tedious to drill out the original rivets, make sure you have good drill bits.

[cessna]

When you did the struts did you replace all the bushings in the tower assembly also, sounds more like a bushing than a metal to metal sound from a ball joint  

[nate93lumina]

Solved:

So the shock retainer nut had came loose and that noise is sound of my shock bottoming out into the knuckle assembly. Needless to say I need new shocks. Does anyone have any recommendations for front shocks? I currently have the AC Delco front shocks but I have seen that Gabriel and a few other companies sell them. 

[digitaloutsider]

The Gabriel ones are kind of junk. I've had good luck with the KYB Excel-Gs/GR-2s on my first gen cars.

[bluecalais79]

KYB Xcel-G's all the way.