[DeTomaso] Squeaky suspension
MikeLDrew at aol.com
MikeLDrew at aol.com
Sat Oct 12 12:55:04 EDT 2013
Jack,
You don't specify if you have stock, or polyurethane suspension bushings.
Poly bushings are well-known to squeak, sometimes to the point of driving
you crazy. There are various lubes etc. that you can apply that can cure
this, and there are poly bushing cars out there that are completely silent.
They aren't inherently so, unlike the stock bushings.
A more dangerous possibility is that the noise you are hearing is caused by
the pins that connect the hub carriers to the lower rear A-arms are seized.
These should be removed and greased every few years (in fact I am
planning on doing mine today). If yours have not been done for awhile (or ever?),
moisture can cause rust which causes the assembly to seize up, and instead
of the suspension flowing smoothly through its arc, some of the movement
necessary can be accomodated through bending (!) of the A-arm rather than
rotation. More than one Pantera has experienced the lower A-arm snapping as a
result.
It only take a few minutes to find out if you're screwed or not. You
should be able to jack up the car, remove the rear wheels, support the hub
carriers on jackstands, remove a nut from one end of the shafts, then using a
hammer and a punch, drive the shafts out. You want to support the hub
carriers so that they don't fall out of position. Once the shafts are out, you
can clean them up, grease everything properly, and then reassemble.
Lori's car had both shafts seized solid; when we did her axles we actually
had to remove the A-arm and the hub carrier as an assembly. Whanging on
the pin while it was in the car did no good because the suspension bushings
absorbed most of the impact. Once everything was apart, we were able to put
the assembly onto an iron anvil with a hole in the center, and while I held
it, somebody else beat on the pin with a 5 lb sledge to drive it out.
Chuck Melton shot video of this process which is on his website somewhere. (I
will send you a copy).
Having said all that however, if you're hearing noises from all over the
car and not merely confined to the rear, then the much more likely culprit is
poly bushings (assuming that's what you have). When people lubricate them,
they always concentrate on the inside, where the bushing goes into the
A-arm, and where the bolt passes through the center. What they fail to realize
is that most of the squeaking comes from the outside edges of the bushing,
where the flat ends engage the mounts on the chassis. These need to be
thoroughly lubed as well.
When you buy new bushings, they normally come with a tiny tube of lube.
You can buy mass quantities of this stuff from any NAPA auto parts store,
cheaply. It's called Sil-Glyde:
http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx/Lubricant-Multi-Pur
pose-Sil-Glyde-Lubricates-Prevents-Sticking-On-Rubber-Metal-Wood-Plastic/_/R
-BK_7651351_0361061267
This stuff works great! It's a real hassle to have to remove 16 bushings
and lube them all up, but it's necessary. Oh, and don't forget the eight
swaybar bushings, which, if they are poly, will squeak like crazy too....
Mike
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