Choreo

This has plagued me of the past two years on my 2001 DD.

The only time this happens is when I back out of my garage. My lead-up to my garage is on a somewhat short steep incline as you can hopefully see from these photos...







When I back out of my garage each day, I usually turn my steering wheel slightly clockwise so that the car emerges at a slight angle as I roll down the short steep driveway to the alley. Right after the rear tires touch the driveway I get a discernible "Thump" in the right rear - like something was in a bind that just freed itself. It only "pops" one time when I first emerge from the garage and does not pop again once the car is out of the garage.

Sometimes I get the same pop (rarely) when I pull IN to the garage at an angle faster than I should. I have never heard this anywhere else in town driving around or on the highway - just my garage.

I replaced my front and rear sway bars with C6-Z51's several years ago and also replaced all 4 end links with the metal versions. My first guess was that maybe it was the rear sway bar bushings needing lube or the right rear end link maybe being loose or binding?

So, yesterday, I finally got around to replacing the bushings with new rubber bushings and lubed them up. I checked the right end link to make sure it was torqued to spec and it seems to move freely without binding. Today, I backed out of my garage and "Thump" once again???

I think it is safe to say it is not the new bushings, so could this maybe be a bad metal end link? Has anyone ever had one go bad?

It did not do this the first few years after I installed the new rear sway bars. Any ideas of what to look for next?

Bill Curlee

Check your rear CV axel output shaft splines and the big NUT that secures the output shaft to rear wheel Hub/s.

The CV Output shafts splines (shaft the drives the rear hub/wheel) can get rusty and IF, the large nut that secures that shaft into the hub is not properly torqued, the shaft will slip in and out of the hub splined shaft and POP when it moves.

You can just see if the nut is loose and tighten it to the correct torque but,, the proper fix would be to pop the shaft out of the rear hub, clean the output shaft and hub splines, grease them and then reassemble.

See if that big nut is properly torqued.

Bill

Choreo

Bill, thanks I will check that out!

Another thought I just had is maybe the Positrack? Might need to change the fluid?

Bill Curlee

If you find yourself a nice big empty parking lot and do some tight figure eights, If the differential LS is not happy, you will know it immediately!

If you have never changed it, do so and make sure that you get the GL5 75/90 W OR regular 75/90 and all the posi additive.

Choreo

Finally located the culprit. It was the right rear metal end link I swapped out a few years ago. Apparently backing out of the garage (a level surface) onto a sloped surface at an angle (the driveway) really puts a lot of stress on the rear end links. That makes sense as it it similar to trying to twist the car front to rear using gravity. When examining the faulty end link, the ball-studs on both ends of the link could be pushed in and out by hand (which was causing the "pop").

I think the ultimate solution is for me to stop pulling in and exiting my garage at an angle and just wait until the front wheels are out of the garage to cut the steering wheel.