2011 LX570 "Clank" in the front (1 Viewer)

[BigMF]

Hello all, I have a mysterious (to me) "clank" in the front of my rig. It's not a "tap" or "clunk", but somewhere in between. I've a got a video below where you can hear it. It's been going on for some time and driving me crazy because it is so inconsistent. It can happen while accelerating, braking, coasting as well as turning left or right or straight ahead. The video below is the first time I've been able to capture the sound. I'm still learning meaning I don't know my suspension terms properly so please forgive me if I call something by the wrong name.

For example, I'm not sure if what I have the red arrow pointing at below is called a shock absorber or strut or something else entirely.

The noise happens after that part stretches out and rebounds when I hit a bump. However, it doesn't happen every time and only when the bump is more sudden as you'll see in the video. It extends once and retracts with no noise but then I apparently hit another, more abrupt bump and the action is much sharper and that is when the noise happens.

Here's the video and I'd appreciate any thoughts on it.

 

[4gotalot]

Do you have any after market struts, springs and how many miles do you have on the rubber bushing at the top of the struts?

 

[bloc]

Check all your bolts. Brake caliper, lower ball joint bridge to knuckle, lower strut bolt, sway bar link to lower control arm bolt, sway bar link to sway bar bolt, upper ball joint to knuckle, the three upper strut to spring bucket nuts, top of the strut nut, LCA/UCA.. basically everything hex shaped on that corner. Checking to published torque values is the most thorough way, but getting a socket on each one and giving it some beans to look for something loose is probably good enough.

That is a solid sound. Reminds me of a loose brake caliper, though I’d think if those were loose they would just back completely out.

Does the camera seem to capture the sound you are hearing accurately? I know that was a big issue with my rear bearing failure.

 

[BigMF]

Do you have any after market struts, springs and how many miles do you have on the rubber bushing at the top of the struts?

As far as I know, they are all OEM from the factory with 155K miles.

Check all your bolts. Brake caliper, lower ball joint bridge to knuckle, lower strut bolt, sway bar link to lower control arm bolt, sway bar link to sway bar bolt, upper ball joint to knuckle, the three upper strut to spring bucket nuts, top of the strut nut, LCA/UCA.. basically everything hex shaped on that corner. Checking to published torque values is the most thorough way, but getting a socket on each one and giving it some beans to look for something loose is probably good enough.

That is a solid sound. Reminds me of a loose brake caliper, though I’d think if those were loose they would just back completely out.

Does the camera seem to capture the sound you are hearing accurately? I know that was a big issue with my rear bearing failure.

I believe the sound in the camera is pretty true to reality. It's hard to judge completely since I'm usually inside the truck and therefore muffled somewhat. However, it is definitely a solid, metallic impact. I took the tire off and checked everything hex-shaped and banged on stuff with a rubber mallet just to see if anything was obviously loose with no luck. I'll try to capture some more video of the sound, hopefully with multiple instances in one clip.

Thanks for leaning in.

 

[TeCKis300]

Hard to diagnose from afar.

I would highly suspect the lower ball joint based on the described occurrence during sharper hits. It's not as easily diagnosed early on as it takes pretty large forces to get it to clunk. Def do as @bloc describes and check bolts for tightness, just to eliminate the easy stuff. But I think this is the lower balljoint. Could also be the UCA balljoint, or tie-rod end but those would tend to clunk under different scenarios.