Front suspension popping noise diagnosis help (1 Viewer)

[Rookie2]

Keep us posted it you find it. I’ll do the same.

 

[BILT4ME]

Did you check torque on your bushing bolts? Have heard this and it turned out they were tight, but not tight enough.

 

[Cruiser804]

I've checked the torque on all the bolts. Been under there with a pry bar too. Need to get the GoPro under there.

 

[Cruiser804]

Purchased and installed Delta VS 2" control arms. Not only is the sound gone but I cannot believe the improvement in the ride and handling of the truck. The harsh ride I blamed on the springs was the OME bushings in the arms. I'm extremely happy with this mod. Only down side is I can't believe I drove 10 years of my life without them.

 

[jjohnny]

Anybody else have any luck with this? I am having a similar problem and wondering if anybody else figured out theirs?

 

[WCBlueSky]

I have a similar popping noise too, seems to be coming from front left.

 

[Cruiser804]

There is no one answer. You have to go through the front suspension piece by piece. I replaced the sway bar and pan hard bushings and re- torqued the control arm fasteners but still had the noise. Over the years, prior to the noise, I had replaced tie rods, springs, shocks and rebuilt the knuckles a couple times. So I was left with only the OME bushings in the OEM arms. I wanted to do something with the caster as well. In the end I decided to go with the Delta VS arms and that eliminated the noise. I think it is reasonable to assume that one or more of the OME bushings were the culprits.

 

[Rookie2]

I’m waiting for it to get cooler to see if mine goes away. It did last year. If that’s is the case, not sure what would cause that. Only thing I can think of that might be affected by ambient temperature is grease in the tie rod end. I can grab the tie rod with my hand and rotate it and it causes a banging noise.

 

[-Spike-]

Just to add to the list of potential issues that cause popping in the front, I traced mine to loose body mounts. I swore it was suspension related, but after replacing all of the suspension bushings with no effect the problem was finally fixed by tightening the body mount bolts. I assume the bolts were shifting back and forth, hitting the edge of the holes they go through. Easy enough to check, on mine I could move the bolts around by hand under the truck. I can't find a torque spec in my FSM but I think I remember someone (@richardlillard1 ?) telling me 55 ft/lbs.

 

[richardlillard1]

The FSM doesn’t list any sort of torque spec for the 80 body mounts, unfortunately. One of the few things on the truck which has none listed.

The 55ft lbs comes from a couple Taco and 4Runner FSM specs. Not exactly the same, but close enough.