Next thing to work on on the cat: Front suspesion.

Car has front sag and the suspension clunks and is a bit wallowy.

Here's the plan for consideration (and for the assorted experience on here to correct pretty please).

Replace front shocks (gotta decide on Bilstein or Monroe)
Replace front up and lower bushes (off the shelf 'Ford' or the fancy polyurethane?)
Replace tie rod ends (previous poster who looked at this car said they needed to replace so I'm assuming I will)
Considering getting thicker ant-sway bars would it be beneficial to do it all at the same time or wait?

What else should I plan to look at or replace?

TIA,
Tony

 

Tony,

MUCH assumption here, it is a V12?????, or a half engine model, mmmmm????. What year is the beast.

Shockers, your choice, as it is like a "which oil is best" question. I run Gabriel on ALL mine except the X300, Bilstiens (as it was made).

Front "uppers" I use poly (choice again).

Front "lowers" I ALWAYS use genuine, as it is a MONGREL job, it has lasted 20+ years and Genuine will do so again. Poly here is not as popular as in the uppers.

Tie rod ends, NOT rocket science.

Front cradle maounts would be a smart replacement, FUN, NO, but ride quality suffers as they deteriate.

Ball joints would be mandatory in my opinion, and the newer XJ40 sealed style is what I use.

The sway bar is fairly heavy as is, IF its a V12, but the "D" mount rubbers are probably long gone, and the link bushes are also probably perished and falling out.

Steering rack mount bushes fail regularly and poly here is choice of most, firms up the steering significantly.

I did mine ALL at one time, took a LONG time as the springs MUST come out (and that can be SCARY without the Jag tool), the cradle mounts took ALL day (bugga of a job), the rest was straight forward stuff.

 

Forget to say it is the 4.0L.

 

SO, a late model. What year????, this will determine the list, including what I listed.

Might pay to addd the car details to your "sig", so when you forget, the system remembers as you reply/post. That way the answers you get will be more suited to your actual car.

 

The front shock seems easy. I don't think you need to take the spring out. I am gong to do it soon. The new shocks should come with new bushing.

 

Correct but to replace the wishbone bushes the springs need come out.

I did my front overhaul last year and it made a huge improvement

PU bushes in upper wishbone and rack

Stock rubber in the lower and subframe mounts. I would not use the PU subframe mounts or lower WB as the NVH would be almost unacceptable.

The PU does firm up the suspension considerably increasing the firmness and vibration, I dont mind this as a trade off for the improved response.

Just did the front swaybar with larger Pedders and poly bushes and droplink bushes. If I were you and contemplating going larger I would do this at the same time as it is a PITA if you do not drop the front subframe.

 

Finally got around to pulling off the front wheel and was surprised things looked pretty good. The shocks looked fairly new and were bilstein. I had been thinking the the front was sagging but now I think it may be that the back is riding a little high. The 'bounce test' was good. How do you check the ride height for correctness?

There is still a clunk on the driver side on turns occasionally. What should I look for with that?

 

Bit hard to tell from the pic but it looks to me as the rear is high. As a wet finger test you should be able to put your fingers on top of the tyre and the back of your hand should just touch the wheels arch.

There is a mark on your sway bar check that it is centered if not it can hit the disk on full lock. If not check ball joints and wheel bearing.

cheers WJ

 

Judging from this I would say that the front is correct and the rear is high. Is this anything to worry about and if so, how do I correct?

 

No expert by any means, but the rear looks high.

The distance to the ground from the rear of the sill looks to be even more than my XJ40, but this seems to be also pushing the front valance down a little.

Dumb question, but have you looked at the tyre sizes front/rear?

 

The front ride height was correct using warrjon's hand test. The rear has a lot more clearance. IIRC the tires are all the same 236/60r15. Was going to check the suspension on the rear but the rear wheel was seized and I was out of time and energy to wrestle with it.

 

Had to have a tire patched because it had a screw in it. Tires were too old so I just ordered some new ones. But here's what else suspension-wise that the NTB store told me about (and showed me).

- Front was fine.
- Rear was a mess.
o had 'newish' struts and 'adjust-a-something' shocks
o just about every bush was totally gone (or about so).

So, how big a job is replacing all the bushes on a rear suspension? They quoted me $400 to $800 to do them (depending on parts) with about 4 hours a side labor. I might be willing to tackle myself but it looked like a huge job.

 

Can you remove the rear wheels and take a couple of photos like you did with the front.

There could be a number of reasons - but lets have a look at the pics before making any judgements

cheers Warren

 

I'll try. The rear wheel was seized so it will take a little more time and effort than I could give it last night.