My QP-S has had the dreaded "clunks when going over bumps" issue for a while now, it wouldn't do it over every bump, the bump had to have a certain shape or "abruptness" to it to make the clunk. A while back I ordered a set of bushings, but put off doing the work until I could learn more about the procedure. I watched Youtube vids, read through every on-line thread I could find, etc. When I was brave enough to actually do the job, I ordered a bushing/ball joint press-out/installation tool set (cheap set of tools from Amazon).
I had determined that the upper-front bushing was bad, but I planned on changing out all of the upper bushings. So I jacked the car up, put a jackstand under the front sub-frame, removed the wheel...and it looks like a straight forward job. I took pictures of everything, noted the number of shims and their location, etc. I removed the upper ball joint retainer nut and attempted to detach the upper control arm from the upright, but could not. I pried, pounded, talked nice to it....no success....could not separate the ball joint from the upright. My only option now would be to remove the control arm pivot bolts, and rotate the control arm outwards...while it remains attached to the upright. I wasn't thrilled but no other choice.
So I get the upper control arm "out" so I can proceed to press out the old bushing(s). Here is where the fun starts. There are 2 bushings in the front control arm bore, one bushing is pressed in from the front direction, the other from the rear direction. Because of this, you cannot just press everything out in one direction as most videos show. I used a screwdriver and hammer, and after a while, I was able to get under the flange of one of the bushings, but could not really make much progress to actually remove it. The bushings had disintegrated to the point where the central guts came out, leaving the outer bushing "can" and rubber material still in the control arm bore. I tried to pound out the front bushing from the back side with no success. I ended up using a hack saw and CAREFULLY cut into the outer bushing casings, just enough to weaken them, and then I was able to pry them out - hooray!
Now you'd think you could just "squeeze" the new bushings into the control arm - but you'd be wrong! There is some lateral movement of the center portion of the bushing since it is encased in rubber, and because of this you will not be able to fully seat the housings into the bore. So I used some plastic spacers between the inner bushing flange and the outer casing flange, essentially making the bushing a solid plug, and using the giant c-clamp in the cheap amazon tool kit, was able to squeeze both bushings in at the same time.
I then made a mistake, I put everything back together, got the car back on the ground...and went for a quick test drive. No more clunking - Yay! However then I remembered a tip, when you tighten the control arm pivot bolts & shims back up, you need to have the suspension in the same position as when the car is on the ground - otherwise the bushing will be in constant torsional stress and fail prematurely. So I raised the car back up, took the wheel off, jacked up the upright until I duplicated the "at rest" suspension position, loosened the control arm pivot bolts and sure enough, I heard a slight noise as the bushings "relaxed"...and then re-tightened everything.
I'm very happy that the clunking is gone, but this job was royal pain in the butt to do. In the future I will let a mechanic with the proper tools do this type of work. I just wanted to post my experiences so that others with the same "clunk" can decide if they want to tackle it themselves or not.
I had determined that the upper-front bushing was bad, but I planned on changing out all of the upper bushings. So I jacked the car up, put a jackstand under the front sub-frame, removed the wheel...and it looks like a straight forward job. I took pictures of everything, noted the number of shims and their location, etc. I removed the upper ball joint retainer nut and attempted to detach the upper control arm from the upright, but could not. I pried, pounded, talked nice to it....no success....could not separate the ball joint from the upright. My only option now would be to remove the control arm pivot bolts, and rotate the control arm outwards...while it remains attached to the upright. I wasn't thrilled but no other choice.
So I get the upper control arm "out" so I can proceed to press out the old bushing(s). Here is where the fun starts. There are 2 bushings in the front control arm bore, one bushing is pressed in from the front direction, the other from the rear direction. Because of this, you cannot just press everything out in one direction as most videos show. I used a screwdriver and hammer, and after a while, I was able to get under the flange of one of the bushings, but could not really make much progress to actually remove it. The bushings had disintegrated to the point where the central guts came out, leaving the outer bushing "can" and rubber material still in the control arm bore. I tried to pound out the front bushing from the back side with no success. I ended up using a hack saw and CAREFULLY cut into the outer bushing casings, just enough to weaken them, and then I was able to pry them out - hooray!
Now you'd think you could just "squeeze" the new bushings into the control arm - but you'd be wrong! There is some lateral movement of the center portion of the bushing since it is encased in rubber, and because of this you will not be able to fully seat the housings into the bore. So I used some plastic spacers between the inner bushing flange and the outer casing flange, essentially making the bushing a solid plug, and using the giant c-clamp in the cheap amazon tool kit, was able to squeeze both bushings in at the same time.
I then made a mistake, I put everything back together, got the car back on the ground...and went for a quick test drive. No more clunking - Yay! However then I remembered a tip, when you tighten the control arm pivot bolts & shims back up, you need to have the suspension in the same position as when the car is on the ground - otherwise the bushing will be in constant torsional stress and fail prematurely. So I raised the car back up, took the wheel off, jacked up the upright until I duplicated the "at rest" suspension position, loosened the control arm pivot bolts and sure enough, I heard a slight noise as the bushings "relaxed"...and then re-tightened everything.
I'm very happy that the clunking is gone, but this job was royal pain in the butt to do. In the future I will let a mechanic with the proper tools do this type of work. I just wanted to post my experiences so that others with the same "clunk" can decide if they want to tackle it themselves or not.
