Hey guys, it's been a long time since I posted, but I'm looking for some help to find this front end clunk that has been driving me nuts.

Let me start out with the basics, 2004, RCSB, 2wd, 5.3, bilsteins, hotchkis front a rear sway bars, 60,000 miles on the truck.

The clunk almost sounds like a loading/unloading/binding noise. It usually happens when the truck is cold and under slow speeds (less than 25mph). I hear and feel the noise coming from the front drivers side floor boards. When cold, I can make the clunk occur if I drive in reverse and hit the brakes to load the suspension, then drive forward and hit the brakes. In this scenario, it only clunks when driving forward. It also occurs if I hit a bump while making a right hand turn. The clunk will also occur when I'm not on the brakes, so that has ruled out braking isses, at least for now. However, the clunk will disappear if I drive the truck for more than 15 miles (truck gets warmed up) and during high speed driving.

I checked the forums and it seems that inner tierods and hub bears are common failure points. I decide to replace my inner tierods in fear that the truck was unsafe (due to the noise). The stock tierods looked and felt fine during the replacement process, but I changed them anyway. This repair seemed to make the noise disappear for a couple weeks, but now it's back.

All of the other suspension bolts looked tight and the balljoints feel pretty good. I regreased the steering shaft, so that's not it. Basically, there is no smoking gun.

The only thing that sort of looks weird is the lower a-arm bushings. The inner part of the bushing has worn to an angle, and doesn't sit square to the frame. I checked my fathers 03 silverado, and his are worn in a similar fashion, but he doesn't have any clunking issues.

The only other thing I have read about was the bolts for the front suspension crossmember causing a clunking noise. I haven't tried to mess with this yet, maybe I should.

I would appreciate any help I can get. thanks

Jeff

 

The crossmember noise is a sharp snap noise when making very sharp turns. I dont think thats your problem.. If you can hear and feel the noise coming from the floorboards it might be a front body mount issue.. They are very common on tahoes and avalanches. Either they need to be insulated or need to be spaced some to eliminate any clearance issues causing the noise. I would try tightnening the hell out of all the body mounts and if that doesn't fix it, it's probably a mount issue.

 

Thanks for the reply... The noise is kind of sharp, almost like someone is hitting the A-Arm with a hammer.

My current plan of attack is to perform the TSB work on the crossmember and tighten the bodymounts.

We'll see how that works out.

Jeff