Alright guys I'm not a mechanically inclined guy but most of the time I just do a little searching and I can fix what needs to be fixed. This isn't one of those cases. About a week ago I was a little over zealous on a broken up road and noticed some clunking from the front end the next day. Not squeaking but clunking, think of two 2x4s hitting one another. I assumed that it would just take some time for it to go away since I normally baby the truck on rough roads and I had probably just shocked it a little more than its used to. Had a similar experience in a dakota previously.

Of course I inspected everything and everything is still together, all connections are tight, all bushings are perfect, except for what I believe are the control arm bushings (directly behind and beneath the brakes?), they are cracked identically on each side so I need to get them replaced however I do not believe this to be the source of the clunks. Theya re both too perfectly identically cracked for them to both have occured last week.

The clunking isn't any worse over bumps and the ride is exactly how it was before. It seems that any kind of body flex creates the clunks, regardless of flat smooth road conditions, bumpy roads, or simply getting in and out of the truck. I've sprayed all the bushing with WD40 to see if that would ease anything and nothing.

Should I wait it out and see if it decipitates or if any of you has had/heard a similar experience what was the fix?

 

do you hear it in the rear mostly or the front?
very well could be control arm bushings as well as many other things.
does it do it harder when turning any certain way?

 

Probably the control arm bushings or u-joints on the driveshaft. Does the truck vibrate or shimmy at a certain speed? I just replaced my control arms and ball joints on my truck and also in the process of replacing the center carrier bearing and u-joints on the driveshaft.

 

Its coming from the front. It drives perfect, no shakes, no rattles, no pulling in any direction. I actually just took her to a little over 90 mph 2 or 3 weeks ago and drove fine at that speed also. It is just an annoying *** clunk/creek.

The reason I'm hoping and thinking that it is just going to need a bit of time is a couple years ago I loaded a dak. (one that had never been loaded before) with sand bags and immediatly afterward there was a horrible squeking after about 3 or 4 weeks of normal driving again it went away and never heard a peep after that.

I wasn't off roading by anymeans, just going faster than normal on a bumpy *** road, I normally do around 10 mph on it but on this day I was in a hurry so I was doing around 25 and the next day I noticed the noise.

 

look at your control arm bushings to see if they look popped or out of round or anything out of the normal. also lift your front end and check for looseness of parts, tie rods, ball joints, wheel bearings, steering linkage, sway bar bushings, sway bar links, bent shock shaft, etc...

 

Isolated the problem after work and it is coming from the front passenger side. Nothing on the driver side which tells me that it isn't from a bushing, it is coming from the upper half of suspension assembly, could it possibly be the shock itself?

 

check the top end of the shock for worn bushings/broken mount as well as for the bottom (bushing and mount)

 

Did some more prodding today and it is my upper control arm. Yanked on it a bit and it is creating the noise, hopefully tightening it a bit will fix it, if not a new control arm will be on order.