I should write a book on this, seriously.
So, my local Firestone folks, who are AWESOME to work with, took it on today. On Tuesday, they had their Hunter Road Force machine calibrated. Awesome! We start working on my tires and instantly notice there is an issue. It keeps calling for weight all over the place. We check the road force and have 5, 10, 10 and 17. The 17 is on the passengers rear and the other 10 on the drivers rear. 10 is on passengers front and the 5 is one drivers front. We balance on this machine and it takes a while to chase. We then move to their NON road force machine to validate. Made a few minor adjustments and then moved on as everything zeroed out on this machine. Their road force machine is in need of another calibration, unfortunately.
Relative to the balance, my steering wheel shake was from 42-65mph. Now, I notice it a bit at 55mph, so it's clearly improved. After the Hunter rep is back out, I will be back for another check. I feel bad for the guys at the shop. Hard to do any better when Hunter was JUST out to calibrate the machine. Enough of this for now...
So, vibe issue somewhat resolved tells me it is NOT an issue with the rear hydro/compliance bushing I just installed. That's good, even though I have both on order. Haha.
The updated part? Ford stopped making a separate control arm/ball joint and rear, lower, hydro/compliance bushing. Part of the reason included the understanding of the pain it was to remove that rear, lower, hydro/compliance bushing and pressing the new one on. Going forward, the new part will come with the control arm/ball joint and rear, lower, hydro/compliance bushing attached. No pressing on/off. The pricing, I am told, remains around $120 for the arm/ball joint AND bushing. In the past, the arm was $120 and that bushing was another $90! Ugh. So, if you have the old setup, finding that rear, lower, hydro/compliance bushing is becoming increasingly challenging.
Relative to my knock/clunk? Keep in mind my control arm/ball joints are new. Same for the rear, lower, compliance bushings. Further, the sway bar bushings and stab links are new, too, and have been disconnected. That leaves little else but the tie rods and strut mounts. As mentioned, I disconnected the tie rods from the knuckle and noticed no play on them - inside or out - on both sides. So, Firestone loosened my strut mounts and then tightened them up. So far, 90% of the rattle is gone. If it gets worse, the strut mounts are coming out and will be replaced with new OEM units.
Will report back after the rebalance. If that does not work, I will pull both control arms and replace that rear, lower, hydro/compliance bushing with an OEM part - currently it is a MOOG part. I doubt it gets to this as the balance they did today took care of much of that wobble I had been experiencing.
Wheew- that is a lot. Thoughts?
Shumax.