01 accord 2dr 4cyl 5spd manual bla bla bla with almost 100k on her

so for about a year the car made a weird clunk driverside front just every once and a while when i hit a bump... i bounced the car up and down and took off the wheel and couldn't find anything wrong or duplicate the noise.

so now it does it all the time, practically any little bump in the road makes the noise. i looked at all the bushings and the only one that i can actually see wear in is the lower mount for the strut, it has a couple little cracks(nothing serious).

i am looking into replacing that but first i wanted to see if anyone has had anything similar so that some light can be shed on this situation

thanks a million guys!

 

One of the ball joints have gone bad. could be either the upper or lower ball joint or the sway bar link joint. My guess would be the upper ball joint, as that is the one that failed first on my accord

 

i guess what i really have to do is just get it apart and check to see how worn everything is, thanks.

any other ideas or input are always welcome

 

Also check your drive shaft to make sure that there is no *axial* end play in the outboard joint -- try pushing and yanking the axle in and out (not just turning it)...

 

HELP ME! so i was checking everything out and i can't get the bolt that goes in the lower strut mount out of there! usually if you take the weight off it they just pop out with the assistance of a hammer but this one is stuck... any tips?

 

Are we talking about the bolt that connects the front shock absorber fork to the lower control arm, or is this the rear shock absorber-to-knuckle-stuck-bolt kind of deal?

If this is front end that you are working on, then I might have had a similar problem (although I do have a 1992 accord, but I think the suspension geometry is pretty much the same). In my case, the bushings have aged and deformed to the point where it was not enough to remove the vehicle's weight off the suspension to release the suspension's tension from that bolt (the suspension continued pushing on it).

I disconnected the bolt that attaches the *inboard* end of the lower control arm to the frame. That allowed the control arm to sort of "pivot" around the radius rod, and gave me enough slack to remove the tension off the stuck bolt and get it out (with the inboard bolt out, you can push that end of the lower control arm further up or down, that extra half-inch made all the diff).

The only catch is that if the bolt is bent, or damaged in some other weird way, not only this will not help you get it out, you *might* also have hard time attaching the lower control arm back to the frame with the fork bolt still sitting in your control arm...

 

this is the bolt attaching the fork to the lca... i hammered on it pretty good and it didn't budge, it just damaged the threads and nut. i sprayed a ton of pb blaster on it.

is my next step going to have to be heating it up via a torch or what? i imagine that will just seal the fate of the bushing and really make a stink in the process

 

So, you can't even turn the bolt itself? You got the nut off, correct?

 

the bolt is a no spin bolt, you know the splined ones and yes the nut comes off easy with the impact

 

I see; but are you sure that the bolt is a nospin? These bolts are also splined on the '92 models too (I believe it's even the same part #) but these splines don't engage with anything, you can turn it just fine...

 

it was a no spin on my teg and civic and i tried turning it a little to see if it would help break it free and i got nothing