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  #21  
Old 07-29-2018, 02:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewwynn View Post

There is a bearing at the top of the spring as well that when wears out can certainly cause clunking


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Andrewwynn, that is very interesting. I just didn't spend enough time looking at the parts diagram to notice the bearing of the spring. To be honest, I had that thought in the back of my head this whole time; thinking that when I moved the strut assembly out and forward towards the front fender to pull and replace the wheel axel, did I dislodge or misaligned something in the strut assembly. A couple weeks ago, I just did a quick inspection of the top of the strut by removing the dome shaped plastic cover. I didn't fully look into the entire assembly. The clunking noise that I get is just very odd and hard to place. So, I will have a much closer look at the strut assembly to see if something got misaligned. It's worth a short. I just hate messing with spring coil as they can be quite dangerous under load if not careful.

If not, well, I have a brand new lower control arm coming. It's going to get installed regardless.
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  #22  
Old 08-10-2018, 04:34 PM
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OK, so I wanted to post an update to chasing that knocking, clunking problem on X5 after wheel axles and upper control arms replacement.

So after properly torquing the bolts on the support plate under the X5, the control arms, etc., the clunking noise was there.

Replacing the passenger's side wheel axle with the new one did not get rid of the noise, nor did it do it with a new lower control arm as well.

So basically, the entire passenger front end has brand new parts outside of the steering link.
Andrewwynn on one of the earlier posts stated that there's a bearing that's replaceable in the strut assembly. After throwing so much time and money at the problem, I decided to test it first before buying more parts.
I loosen the strut tower mount nuts (3), the shock lock nut; all up to the top of the bolt thread. I intentionally left all of the loosen nuts threaded in flushed with the top of the bolts. That's so I don't have to deal with unsprung spring and remounting it.

After the nuts were loosen, I jacked up the car at the front passenger side, went and turned the steering wheel left and right (not all the way, just enough to turn the wheels by several degrees) to get the front wheels situated.

When I jacked up that side, I heard a clunk...so definitely something was twisted the entire time. Anyways, I then proceeded to lower the front slowly down to the ground to allow everything to settle naturally. I then proceeded to evenly tightened all the bolts, starting with the shock bolt and then moving to the shock tower mount nuts, and then evenly torqued them all.

I backed the X5 out of the garage and took it around the block. The CLUNKING sound was GONE!!!
However, when I drove up the driveway, it created the noise again. So, I think the bearing within the strut assembly went bad when I replaced the wheel axle assembly.

Well, that's the scoop. I hope I'm right about the bearing part so stay tuned.
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  #23  
Old 08-15-2018, 06:16 PM
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I had this similar problem on my 3.0/01 X. Loud clunk sometimes over bumps, sometimes not. Mechanic said, thrust bushings, but they were freshly pressed new just 24K miles ago, he said, have to do the entire part. OK, but guess what; still clunked. It turned out to be upper strut bearing on the driver side. I figured, we didn't replace them when we did front strut pair at 160k miles. The clunk started at 188, shortly after replacing both front axles with new OEM. Good luck. BTW, struts original? Axles don't typically clunk, they tend to rattle loud when the CV joints are going. The ball joint and lower control arms make a fairly loud clunk when stopping short or pulling out in reverse and braking hard. You are literally lifting the front end on reverse hard braking. Try it.
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  #24  
Old 08-23-2018, 08:34 PM
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Clunking noise solved. First thing first, I initially, I added a washer to the top bolt of the sway bar connecting rod to give me enough clearance for a 5mm thick box wrench so I can tighten the bolt. I think that's what may be the cause of the issue but I'm not 100% sure. So, thinking back about when the replacement parts arrive, they did not come with the extra washer, so why would I need to add one?
I used a power torque driver and was able to spin the nut quicker then the bolt turning in the ball joint. That allowed me to tighten both ball joint nuts at both ends.

Moving on to the struts, I had purchased two new Upper spring pocket w/axial cage bearing thinking they may be the cause of the clunking problem. Turns out, I haven't had to use them yet.
I loosened all the necessary bolts and nuts top of the strut mount down to the control arm ball joints. Once the struts were free to move around, I twisted the strut assembly by about 1/4 turn each way several times to ensure all the parts are seated properly.
I then lowered the front down far enough to have the strut assembly seated quietly without any popping sound. I proceeded with tightening all the nuts and bolts evenly at first and then torqued them tight.
Took the SUV for a drive and have not had the noise since. It's all quite and not feeling any resistance or vibrations either.
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