Hey peeps, been doing a lot of work on my blazer (2004 4x4 2dr)(3 button switch). Just as I fix one thing, something else pops up, I just been lucky its all marginal in cost and difficulty.

Ok, to the prob at hand, the rattle is in the front (no rattle in the rear), passenger side, I drive over a small bump and the rattle sounds loud, I have checked the ball joints, tie rods, the new idler arm I installed. My blazer has torsion bars and I checked those...all seems tight when I haul or push on it (no play), shocks aren't leaking but I am not sure when they were last changed as I only bought this vehicle about a month ago. I will be changing them soon pending $$$$, but was just wondering if that is what is causing this noise .

Thanks

Darryl

 

sounds like your hub needs replaced. you can check by jacking up the wheel and seeing if it has any play up or down. I'd check it soon its scary when you wheel bearing flies out of the hub

 

make sure u r checking the ball joints with the vehicle supported by the lower control arms or u wont b able to tell if they r bad or not

 

New ball joints already installed...upper and lower. Will be checking the wheel bearing asap, i do have a roaring coming from the front end at speeds over 40km hr.

Thanks for info

Darryl

 

Well, I found the culprit for that rattle, the shocks, I can take them with my hand and move them up, down side to side, very lose although the bolts are tight. Haven't taken them off yet as there are no parts stores open here on Sunday except Canadian Tire (rather not buy parts there lol).

While inspecting these shocks I did notice that the stabilizer bar links (to lower control arm) look rather loose, gaps between the top rubber and mounting bracket.

And how much play is there supposed to be in the stabilizer bar itself? I can take a pry bar and move it up and down a little prob about 1/8th to 3/16th of an inch play.

 

There shouldn't be any play in the sway bar.

On the shocks, I ran into this on my old '00 Bravada when I replaced the shocks. I had to tighten the **** out of the upper bolts to get them to stop making noise.

 

Bought new shocks anyway, installing them tomorrow. And, I guess new stab links and bushing as well. Better to have it all new, at least I know what I got lol.

 

Well, replaced the shocks, and stab links. Bad news here, after removing the stab links I inspected the mounting bracket for the links on the lower control arm, the right side is worn about 1/16th to 1/8th inches oblong.

Going to get a friend to do small fill with welder and reshape the hole with grinder. IS this an option? Will welding weaken it or is it already to the point of replacing the lower control arm?

Also, I have a repair manual (haynes) and it states that the torque for the link nuts is 150ft/lbs . Man, that can't be right, I put 110 on it so far and the bushing seems to be squatting itself out of the steel washers. Is this a proper torque or is it a typo in the book?

Thanks

Darryl

 

Welding shouldn't weaken anything, but I'm not sure I would worry about it. The hole shouldn't affect the operation of the end link.

If you put 150ftlbs on the swaybar end link bolts, you will snap them. Just tighten them enough so that the bushings squash out to about the same diameter as the washers.

 

Thanks for the info, and saving me time doing something that isn't really needed. My friend said same thing about the wear in the link hole.

Darryl