proposed front shock fix for clunking on lifted 100's

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Joined
Nov 11, 2011
Threads
22
Messages
383
Location
Kamloops
I've been battling this front clunk mystery for the last months, ferrying my rig to my TRD mechanic across town. My problem was a mystery clunking felt under my feet in the drivers side. it occurs typically when unwieghting a wheel i.e. coming off something, speedbump (going slow), reversing out of a driveway and turning, transitioning from a flat piece of road into a left hand turn onto a slightly less elevated street.

I searched all over on fixes on the forum - most resulted in sway bar mounts. i have changed sway bar bushing and links/hardware, uca's and ball joints. The UCA's and sway bar hardware needed to be done anyway and didn't fix the problem. The clunking is still there. We put the cruiser up on the rack and went through part by part.. all good.. it wasn't until we were pulling up and down on teh bullbar to see if we could hear movement did the clunking appear. We are hazarding a strong guess that the suspension is topping out and limiting out on the shock itself. It would take too many top outs to ruin the rubber bushing inside.

on to the proposed fix.. this is experimental on our side for the moment - please comment, give advice if know something that would help..

option 1 - as a trial, we searched for slightly longer shocks to put in there to see if the extra shock extension will allow the suspension to stop (extend) on teh lca rather than the shock itself. We are still looking for something local and haven't sourced anything yet.

option 2 - using the same shocks, we're going to add a spacer under the upper shock mount to bring it down a bit further (i.e. compress and allow more droop). as a note, the truck always has been setup according to the guidance on Slee's website and OME - we have 70 mm of droop.

the option 2 is to test if this solves the issue, if so, option 1 may be considered until i can find an alternate and hopefull better solution. this cruiser is for wheeling; our environment tends to be lots of low range, slow crawling, lots of rocks, water and mud. oh yes, did i mention mosquitoes?

the cruiser is being put together now to see how it works, but has anyone experienced this or tried to resolve this? I would expect this to be a much wider voiced concern considering the amount of lifts out there - Any insight or recommendations are welcomed.
 
What type of shocks?

Be careful with longer travel shocks...if the shock isn't the droop limiter then your upper ball joint will be...and you'll get more than a knock noise as a result ;)

And longer travel shocks generally have longer compressed lengths...just be sure to check that.

You could also incorporate droop/limit straps to buffer/slow down the droop hit. Straps in addition to special internal plastic pucks we turned limit my Fox shocks droop...works great in combo.
 
We haven't found shocks yet, although i've spent some time speaking with Ben at Slee as well. I think both options are not a long term solution but at least option 2 will help verify the clunk.

you are absolutely right on the pressure on the upper ball joint.. my fears exactly. Do you have any pics of your setup Spressomon? we talked about limiting straps but i was trying to get to the root of the problem.. it still may be the way to go.

as a back up, i ordered front OME replacements, but instead of the standard 'soft' valving i went with the firmer shocks.. i was warned it would be a bit harsh, but for 200 bucks i'm willing to try.

to go all out, which i will once i confirm this is the problem and spend some time with it, is going full slee shocks or a suitable rebuildable. full adjustable is the way to go to get compression and rebound more precise to control up and down travel dampening. or so i've been led to believe.

just trying to figure this thing out.
 
We are hazarding a strong guess that the suspension is topping out and limiting out on the shock itself.

While I can't confirm 100%, I believe this is the case as well.

With AHC, I can feel/hear this behavior back to back over the same obstacle (sharp tall speed bump) when traveling over it at different ride heights.

At normal right height, I get lots of plush droop and compression travel. If I were to hit the same speed bump in high mode (~2" lift), I can hear and feel the suspension running out of droop travel when running over the same speed bump. The clunk from running out of droop travel is distinct.
 
While I can't confirm 100%, I believe this is the case as well.

With AHC, I can feel/hear this behavior back to back over the same obstacle (sharp tall speed bump) when traveling over it at different ride heights.

At normal right height, I get lots of plush droop and compression travel. If I were to hit the same speed bump in high mode (~2" lift), I can hear and feel the suspension running out of droop travel when running over the same speed bump. The clunk from running out of droop travel is distinct.

yes, from all the posts i've read this has been brought up a number of times but there hasn't been a ton of easy off the shelf solutions unless you start spending your kids inheritence. Even then, there are going to be some compromises until we start seeing other options to change the ifs.

speaking of spending my kids inheritence, my mechanic has me close to sold on a solid front axle swap next year.
 
I have the same exact clunk, I have gone through 3 different shock makers that are longer, shorter, etc than stock and have not found the clunk yet. I am almost positive it is the lower shock bolt shifting in the eyelet allowing for the clunk to happen.
 
I had this issue with the Bilstein HD shocks. My 100 was lifted a very minimal amount yet the front shocks were topping out when going over speed bumps. When comparing the OEM shock to the Bilsteins, the OEM shocks were longer. I reinstalled the OEM's and the problem went away.
 
Great thread. I have the same exact issue and I haven't really had time to figure it out yet.

I do know my LX with 188k miles has some play in the lower ball joints. I was thinking since its lifted with 2.5" slee kit and with how much droop I have, I think in some instances the shock gets maxed out and the slack in the lower ball joint may be causing the noise. One thing I did notice that makes me suspect the lower ball joint is that when my torsion bars were set a little lower, the noise wasnt there. It was there after I went to 35's and cranked the torsion bars a bit more, at the same time losing some droop. (hope thats not too confusing)
 
I would suggest limit straps if you top out often or hard (gently lifting the front as a rear corner crawls into a hole is fine, going from full comp to full droop on high speed whoops is not so good).
The shock is the down travel limiter on the stock set up, you don't want the ball joints doing that job. So a limit strap is the solution for frequently hitting the limit. Any desert truck or truck that jumps and run's woops will usually have limit straps for the droop limit and jounce shocks or air bumps to limit the compression allowing the shock to be purely a damper not a limiter.
 
I have limit straps on mine. Work great.
 
I have same issue. I have minimal lift. I replaced OME upper bushings, etc to reduce clunk, but saw no improvement.
 
you are absolutely right on the pressure on the upper ball joint.. my fears exactly. Do you have any pics of your setup Spressomon? we talked about limiting straps but i was trying to get to the root of the problem.. it still may be the way to go.


Here's an old photo post from my ROTM thread...showing the strap. As you can see I'm using a traditional eye style upper mount with an adapter...not sure how you'd integrate an upper attachment for a strap on a post style...probably not insurmountable.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/showpost.php?p=2450055&postcount=60
 
Here is a pic of the limit straps. Frame to LCA mount done by PO. For my lift height it allows full drop without over extending the shock.

AE7B7020-DBCE-473D-A850-47CCF554346F-122-00000001E0BD0301_zpsd638f3a5.jpg
 
Last edited:
I don't think the clunk itself is necessarily an issue as my stock LX does it. It's not a very satisfying sound, but I trust Toyota to have designed the shock travel limiter to endure just fine.

For those with a lift, I would say the focus of any 'fix' would be more to find ways to extend droop travel, or to revise the suspension in a way that that neutral height is not so far at the downward end of the suspension stroke.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom