Front control arms

[Scott Opheim]

Al asked, "So were you ever able to determine what was causing the noise in
the driver side control arm  ? Maybe a defective ball joint or perhaps
one of the rear mounting bolts wasn't correctly seated causing some play
in the arm."

I was never able to determine what caused the clunking sound.  I installed the
ball joints according to directions and checked them 3 or 4 times but without
success.

Regarding the ES bushings, When I did the work I had about 180,000 miles on
the car.  The car felt tighter and less "wiggly" then before the installation.
For less then 100 bucks and 2 days of work I highly recommend it.  It's
definitely a do it yourself project.  My biggest problem was getting the rear
sway bar (I have the Suspension Techniques bar) re-installed.  Actually my
biggest problem was the rear bolt on the control arm on the right rear corner
of the car.  the nut wouldn't budge  and the bolt is in this cavity that you
can barely get a wrench into and I couldn't get enough leverage to breat the
nut free so I ended up with 4 bruised knuckles and was never able to free the
bolt.  I'm planning on breaking out the sawzall this summer and taking another
whack at it.

What springs/shocks are you running?  After I did the bushings I splurged on
GC coilovers and KYB adjustable shocks.  I bought the complete package from
Ground Control.  They modified the shocks so the sleeves would fit correctly
and shipped them to me pre-assembled.  I really like the setup.  It firms up
the ride and is still acceptable for street use (I live in Houston and we have
some really bad roads down here).

Hope this helps, left me know if you have any other questions.

Scott Opheim