So, has anyone ever had anything like this before?

My '91 had been making some odd noises at times, something in the rear end. I hadn't had a lot of time to give it a serious investigations, but I did some of the basics. No loose hardware, rear bearings good (should be, just replaced them not too long ago...), couldn't find anything loose on any of the linkage. I thought ok, the shocks are old, maybe even original, and the car does have about 150K miles on it so I thought maybe it's bad shocks, or maybe something loose with the exhaust, even though I couldn't make it "Clunk" by hand the way it did on the road. Spare tire and carrier are removed so that's not it.

Sooooo.... Wife and I are driving around a town about an hour away, I hit a potthole and I hear a BIG "CLUNK", the ***-end seems to squat and now something is dragging big-gime. The drive shaft? Exhaust pipe break and drop? A quick blip on the throttle and the car surges and doesn't get louder so, no. Neither exhaust nor driveshaft. Luckilly I wasn't going very fast and managed to pull around the corner out of traffic.

I got out and took a look underneath and cannot believe what I saw: I was staring at the driver's side of the transverse spring riding against the asphalt! WTF???

Wife asks what it is and I'm dumbfounded. I mean, ther'es no way this can happen, right? The damned retainer is a big-old bolt with a castle nut and cotter pin so there's no effing way it can come off...right? NOt unless the pin comes out and the castle-nut backs out.

I crawl under again and take another, closer, look. Holy Crap! The castle nut and cotter-pin are still on the bolt!

Okay, so the end of the spring broke? Look closely at the spring... Nope, aside from being ground down a little from the short rub on the asphalt, the spring tip is intact and the hole is not big enough to have allowed the bushing retaine to have slipped past.

The only thing I can think of is the thick washer that retains the poly bushing somehow broke?

Getting it back home was another ordeal... but it's home now.

Now, I've got a '92 that's supposed to be a track car that currently has the stock springs... I'm thinking I wanted to upgrade the track car springs anyway, so now if I can only find a set of 88-91 Z51 or Z07 springs I can swap em all out. Anyone got a set laying around?

 

..... Maybe its time to revisit those New Years resolutions ... particularly the one about losing some weight ... seriously , I doubt the washer would break ... more likely whoever installed the poly bushings left it off ... make sure you check 'em all ...............

 

I know, it is just not logical that the washer broke. I'm the one who installed the poly bushing, so I know the washer was on there. It wasn't a recent change. The hole in the middle wasn't worn when I changed it a couple years ago, and I can't imagine in the short time since that it would have worn out enough to slip over the nut. But, since the castle nut and cotter pin were still intact, failure of that washer is the only other explanation.

Wish I would hjave thought about trying to find the bushing and retainer on the street when it happened....

 

This happens more on C4's than you think. It happen to me about 4 years ago.

 

Kimmer, wow, thanks. I had never heard of it before. Dit it cause much other damage? Luckilly I wasn't going very fast and was able to stop within about 75 feet or less. Unfortunately, later I noticed it also broke one of the center spring mounts as well, must have twisted from dragging the spring.

 

I had the spring on my 85 break about 6 years ago. It does happen. he good thing is that it is very easy to replace.