A great big clunk. what is it?

['round n' back again]

gen 1 montee lwb.
the front right side and sometimes the left side will "unbind" on hard braking , low speed going backward.
roll out of the garage and down the steep drive, stab brakes in a normal fashion, there is a loud pop, snap, or an unbinding of something over there.
rig drives true, steers true there is no evident caster camber misalignment. just this pop or bam type of noise and only under those circumstances

in another type of brake system my first guess would be a loose caliper. but not here.

any ideas?

brakes are new. tires wheels on tight, bearings tight,


bushings? but there is no slop on highway or over rough ground

 

[clmrt]

Damaged ball joint?

 

[jaccox23]

Yea I'll toss my bet on lower balljoint

 

['round n' back again]

likely thats my guess too.
no evidence of that in the normal methods of testing. no funny tire wear, but im guessing along with you.

im preparing a wholesale replacement of the front suspension, and that will eliminate the problem, but would like to pinpoint b4 i change everything.

thx

how are you testing for ball joint slop?

 

[jaccox23]

i'm not totally sure how to actually test one other than have someone stand beside you as you stop and try to pinpoint the noise. Maybe look for damaged grease boot. The lower Balljoint is a pain to even put eyes on in the gen 2 so i'm not sure what its like in the gen 1

 

[clmrt]

See if you still have all the nuts on your ball joint fittings, and look for a missing brake caliper bolt.

 

['round n' back again]

yes check all that.
ball joint test pry up on knuckle looking for play in ball joint.
but anyway im going to assume ball joint and change just that one joint. see what happens!

thanks

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

See if you still have all the nuts on your ball joint fittings, and look for a missing brake caliper bolt.

Not just those, but check the brake caliper mounting bracket bolts. The little devils. Jorge lost one while we were whipping down a deserted wide open trail last spring and we never did find it, even though we sent his brother back several miles and told his kids we would give them candy if they spotted it. Ended up having to borrow one of his lower ball joint bolts to replace it (it still only has three out of four something like nine months later because we keep forgetting about it). Fun times.

John B.

 

['round n' back again]

that do sound like fun. not the looking part, but the trail part.

you will remember it if that third bolt parts company!!

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

you will remember it if that third bolt parts company!!

Yes, because I've reminded him a couple of times to replace it since we have a bunch of them at the 14th St complex. If any of the other three come loose I'll remember to laugh and remind him "I told you so!" Hopefully he doesn't die, because he's young, and that would suck.

John B.

 

['round n' back again]

yes it sucks to be young and careless.
it sucks even more, even to the worst degree, to be old and careless.

in fact it sucks being old period.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

It does indeed. I've found I don't bounce off things as well as I used to.

John B.

 

[SD_Montero]

I've had what sounds like the exact same popping sound when driving slow with a a lot of stop and go , especially in parking lots. I did all ball joints ,tie rods shocks, brakes, rotors, wheel bearing and front axles and still hear it sometimes, did the shocks more recently and don't notice it quite as much. I'm thinking it's the control arm bushings are just old and dry so they are creaking really loud sometimes and it's echoing through things or something to do with torsion bars...

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk

 

['round n' back again]

14th street complex.... sounds kinda like my fantasy montero ranch.


i get the feeling its like a tie rod binding up, but if it did that would be due to misalignment between tie rod and knuckle. ....dont make sense.

 

[JamesW]

Mine used to make a loud crack under braking, accelerating and articulation, the noise was so loud it was hard to work out where it was coming from, it turned out to be the rear radius arm bolt being slightly loose. I had let it go for so long that the hole in the axle had become slightly oval, so now i've it tightened to an insane level just to stop the noise until i can sort the axle