Think I found the rattle.

[maroon93limited]

So for a couple of years now I've noticed a rattle in the drivers side front of the Ex while hitting a bump. This past weekend we were camping in the middle of nowhere on some pretty nasty roads, and the rattle got bad enough that I said to hell with it and got under the truck when we stopped. Every bushing on this thing looks brand new, including the radius arms, tie rods etc. etc.
I decided to grab the shock and give it a shake, and lo and behold the bloody thing moved quite a bit. It seems to be pivoting where the rod goes into the main body. Got up, stood on the bumper and used my 250 lbs to give it a good bounce, jumped off and the damn thing looked like some kind of lowrider with hydraulics. Funny thing is, it seems to ride just great.

So after that rant, I guess my question is can the bushings up front look fine yet still be crap, or should I just go ahead and replace the shocks as they're fairly inexpensive and easy to swap out?

 

[97xxxploder]

u got bad shocks my friend. my car did the same thing. it will ride smooth bc ur shocks have gotten so soft that there isnt much resistance anymore. replace the shocks and u will be good as gold.

 

[Roadrunner777]

I broke a mount replacing a shock absorber, drove to the store with it broken, and fixed it. I didn't notice any change from old shock to no shock to new shock. But, it was an easy drive too. The fronts are easy, though the bottom mount is known to break, and there is a common repair kit for it. The backs are tucked up around the spare tire... I hear if you get the tire out and jack it up, it's not too bad.

 

[maroon93limited]

I actually replaced my rears last year with some Monroe load levellers (the ones with the coil overs) as we do a lot of camping and all of our gear was sagging the rear end quite bad. So now it rides like a chuckwagon in the rear and a Cadillac up front.

Thanks for the tips guys!

 

[FIND]

Just out of curiosity, are the anti-rattle clips installed on your inboard brake pads?

 

[maroon93limited]

That's a really good question FIND. I need to do the brakes right away as I have a seriously warped rotor, so I'll check when I'm in there.

On a side note, it looks like the front shocks are original to the Ex as they are stamped with the Motocraft part number and the upper mounting stud still has a good coat of black paint on it along with the nut. With 108,000 miles on the truck, I'm sure it's long past new for new shocks anyway.

 

[mehedgec]

Throw some new sway bar end link bushings while you're. In there. They made my front end rattle go away completely. I replaced the front shocks a month before doing those and it still had a bit of a rattle.

 

[FIND]

Yeah, have a look. Sometimes they break, sometimes people forget to install them. Sometimes they don't rattle for whatever inexplicable reason, other times, they rattle like a box of ball bearings every time you go over a bump.