NEED HELP Left front pop.

[07TrailyLS]

hi guys. 2/4 drop, modded uppers. I Have had belltechs lowering kit on a little over a year now and have no complaints. However, the last few weeks it's been driving me absolutely insane trying to chase this pop backing out of my driveway. My driveway is flat but there is a curb about 4 inches tall I tend to hit with my left front almost religiously. As soon as I come down the little curb and it hits the road, I get a nasty thud that only occurs when my wheel is turned drastically to the right. So to sum it up...
The pop only happens while dropping OFF the 4 inch curb while backing out AND having the wheel turned drastically to the right. I don't know if my UCA is just banging heavily against my fender well plastic or what. My suspension is tight. Endlinks, upper ball joints are all still going strong. 2 days ago I replaced my seat bar bushings because those were most certainly out and the handling is a night and day difference, but has nothing to do with the pop. Any ideas guys?

 

[kickass audio]

I'd suggest typical suspension checkup for it. Jack up the front end underneath the lower control arm so the tires are off the ground then get a big pry-bar and try to push the tire up and down. If it moves then your lower ball joint is going bad.

If it is solid on both sides, take a look at your sway bar links. With a rubber mallet (I just use a closed fist) bang on the outer area where the sway bar links attach at and see if it makes a clunking noise, if it does, your sway bar links are worn. If you aren't sure, just disconnect one side of the sway bar link and move out of the driveway. It is driveable without the sway bar hooked up, just don't take sharp turns at high speed.

Another idea is to rock your truck side to side with all tires on the ground. When the sway bar links went on my truck (both fronts and then later the rear) if I rocked the truck up and down on one side, you would hear the clunking of the sway bar links being bad. Same on my girlfriends car. Open up the door and push up on the roof and then let it drop, keep doing that to hear if there is any clunking.

Take a look at your steering. Check the inner and outer tie-rod ends. My truck has a moog outer tie-rod on both sides and one is a bit worn than the other side and both were brand new when I had them installed. They are tight but I can twist the one outer tie rod a little by hand and when I do that, you can hear it pop slightly.

Finally to check if you may have a bad bushing, take your truck and try to push it sideways back and forth. For example, prop the hood up and grab the fender and try to push the truck side to side. If it clunks doing that, your bushings are going bad and you need to figure out if its a control arm bushing or something else. Typically it will be a control arm bushing that goes bad for that kind of test.

 

[07TrailyLS]

Yeah. Most of my suspension parts are brand new. Only things I haven't replaced are my lower control arms/ball joints. I'll go out tomorrow sometime and give those a test. If they pass, I'm narrowing it down to my modded uppers and or tire slamming into the plastic fenderwell.

 

[Playsinsnow]

I just found this searching. I have a "pop" when turning hard right at slow speed. Lbj's are tight, checked when I put new hubs on this last weekend. Steering fluid leaks on hard left, my driveway has the proof, so I was wondering if the "pop" sound was related to the rack/pinion or possibly inner tierods?