Clunking and vibration is driving me nuts!

Hi!

Registered to this forum looking for some help and opinions.

I just had my ´77 Caprice on jack stands for a couple of months doing quite a lot of work:
- Replaced all body mounts with energy suspension parts
- New pads and rotors in front
- New wheel bearings front and back
- New idler arm
- New stabilizer bushings
- New shocks front

Now I have this terrible clunk coming from the left-front side of the car, seems like it is coming from somewhere left of the drivers seat. The clunk appears when letting of the gas abruptly, when braking hard or sometimes just by itself. The body mounts all seem to be properly tightened. The other problem I have is that when I reach 60 mph the gar shakes violently, except for the clunking it drives fine up until 60 mph.

Hope somebody has some good ideas, thanks!

Hello and Welcome to the Forum!

I could be wrong but from what you describe it sounds like you may have somehow knocked one of the balance weights off the drive shaft.  I had similar symptoms on one of my cars (fine at low speed, bad vibration at higher speeds) and that's what it turned out to be.


Edit* Nah, on second thought I don't think it has anything to do with the DS. Sorry.

Could be the shaft making the clunk and the shake. I have had a lot of violent shakes over 60mph and they were all

tire\wheel related usually bad rim or out of balance but the clunk doesn't equal into that equation. Most clunks I had

like that were loose sway bars. Just few thoughts for you.

Hi there. Welcome! The bad news is, it could be a number of things. Was the clunking there before you did all of the work? If not, I would go back and thoroughly check all of the work and make sure things were tightened down well, etc... I once replaced a front wheel bearing and noticed when I was coming to a stop it felt like something was clunking in the front. Turned out I didn't get the preload right and it was too loose, causing the hub to shift. This would also cause a serious vibration as well and is also very dangerous to drive. My first thought when I read your post was transmission mount which could also make a clunking sound and will cause vibration as well, but you said more toward the left front, so I'm thinking wheel bearing. A warn a-arm bushing could also give you a similar clunk and some vibration as well. Anything concerning the front steering such as tie-rods, center link, idler arm, pitman arm that may be loose or warn could also be possible. The only other thing I can think of that would cause vibration is warn or bad universal joints in the drive shaft, but usually, it will vibrate at even low speeds. If the issues were not there before, it would definitely be worth a look to go back over the work done. Good luck and keep us posted!