JeffNJ94Explorer
Active Member
- Joined
- October 29, 2006
- Messages
- 50
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Middlesex, NJ
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 94 Explorer 5MT
First I gotta give a a big to rockauto.com. I ordered from them 2 new radius arm brackets, the bushing kit and an oil filter and they only charged me $8 shipping! Plus I ordered the parts 10:30pm the night before Thanksgiving and they showed up on my doorstep 9:00 am the day after thanksgiving.
So, when i bought my truck, there was this horrible clunk noise when i hit the brakes, or took off, my friends named it "the death clunk". A look under the truck showed some badly worn radius arm bushings:
I drove it for about a week and figured i better fix it fast. I was hoping I would only need new bushings, but i'd better look before I order parts. I got under the truck and took off the radius arm nuts and rear bushings and bam, both radius arm brackets are FUBAR'd as well:
So I ordered up the parts from rockauto.com and got to work. The whole job only took me like 2.5 hours. Of course I had my buddy's shop stuff full or air tools and a lift which made it much easier!First thing I did was use the air chisel and bust off the 2 rivits per side, don't forget to unbolt the fuel filter and get it out of the way first!
Then I unbolted the the other bolts and the brackets came off pretty easily. Look how bad the old bushings were compared to the new ones!
Now all the parts that came from rockauto.com were Moog brand. As I was reassembling the brackets, I noticed how similar they were to the factory Ford brackets, gee, I wonder why there are ground down spots on the new Moog brackets exactly where the Ford part #'s were on the original Ford brackets? Oh yeah, the new Moog brackets came with all new hardware, even bolts and nuts to replace the rivets with, that was a nice surprise.
Then I buttoned it all back up, I don't think I ever had a repair go as smoothly as this one! It drives so much better now and no more death clunk! The only thing is the alignment is off now, because the previous owner must have had it aligned around the radius arm troubles.
So, when i bought my truck, there was this horrible clunk noise when i hit the brakes, or took off, my friends named it "the death clunk". A look under the truck showed some badly worn radius arm bushings:
I drove it for about a week and figured i better fix it fast. I was hoping I would only need new bushings, but i'd better look before I order parts. I got under the truck and took off the radius arm nuts and rear bushings and bam, both radius arm brackets are FUBAR'd as well:
So I ordered up the parts from rockauto.com and got to work. The whole job only took me like 2.5 hours. Of course I had my buddy's shop stuff full or air tools and a lift which made it much easier!First thing I did was use the air chisel and bust off the 2 rivits per side, don't forget to unbolt the fuel filter and get it out of the way first!
Then I unbolted the the other bolts and the brackets came off pretty easily. Look how bad the old bushings were compared to the new ones!
Now all the parts that came from rockauto.com were Moog brand. As I was reassembling the brackets, I noticed how similar they were to the factory Ford brackets, gee, I wonder why there are ground down spots on the new Moog brackets exactly where the Ford part #'s were on the original Ford brackets? Oh yeah, the new Moog brackets came with all new hardware, even bolts and nuts to replace the rivets with, that was a nice surprise.
Then I buttoned it all back up, I don't think I ever had a repair go as smoothly as this one! It drives so much better now and no more death clunk! The only thing is the alignment is off now, because the previous owner must have had it aligned around the radius arm troubles.