I suspected my upper control arms bad on both sides.
I am about to order MOOG upper control arms from rockauto. Anyone had any experience with MOOG or TRQ upper control arm? Are they good?

 

MOOG is A NASCAR brand so they are good & reliable. I only go with TRQ as my cheaper quality brand of parts. Like my work truck I buy all TRQ parts since they are cheaper and I test them to see how long they actually will hold up.

 

I'd recommend delphi but they are over double the price! Just make sure the ball joint comes with a cotter pin and not one of the stupid locknuts.

 

I partially removed the upper control from the knuckle and the other end is still connected to the car body. I moved it around and it felt very firm and stiff as well as its ball joint. I did this on both sides. To me I think they are still good.

 

why did you think the upper arms were bad?

 

because I could not isolated where the clunking comes from. Sway bar link , sway bar bushings, upper control arms, struts are all looks good. And lower ball joint are fine.

 

I am in the same boat as you - drives me nuts.

 

The clunking noise on mines isn’t pronounced. It’s very subtle and only on the driver side.

 

I just went Skunk2, but that was a while ago so not sure if they are available. But good luck

 

Re-torque your axle nut.



Better yet. You've recently done all this suspension work.... go back and re-torque every single nut and bolt that you've touched.

 

I did retighten the top bolts for the struts and the bolt connecting the folk to the LCA.

ok. I will look into the axle nut. Why would you think the axle nut is loose?

 

Disconnect your sway bar links.

Go for a drive. Did the clunking stop?

How many miles does the car have? A bad UCA is really easy to check for. Your factory UCA is superior to any aftermarket one. So make sure its bad before replacing it.

 

Superior to even those skunk2 Megan racing camber adjustable type UCA’s?

 

137k miles

So it is safe to drive with BOTH end links disconnected?

 

UCA ball joints will make clunking if you go from R to D and listen carefully.

Did you confirm the compliance bushings are good?

 

I checked the UCA (both sides) by removing their ball joints from the fork while they were still attached to the unibody. I wiggled, pushed and pulled on the UCA anti it ball joint with all my strength they were rock solid and very stiff.

And then I completely removed the end links. The end links feel very stiff and no play. I wiggled the sway bar when the end links were removed again it felt rock solid and very stiff on the bushings .

 

if the UCA ball joint is not Jiggly, then I doubt it is the clunking source. I replaced mine years ago and didnt solve a thing. In fact, I bought a UCA from Autozone, I think it was duralast, and it was too wide!! It did not fit. I had to put my oem one back on. It was about 1/4" wider. And it simply would not fit in the space on the body. It totally blew me away. I took at back and got a return.

But I have had a clunking noise for about 5 years on the drivers side too. I wonder if 1 or more of the 3 transmission mounts are faulty?

 

my next task would be removing both end links and do a test drive to see if the sway bar bushings .

 

Is your car lowered? or with aftermarket springs?
One other thing I wonder about, Is it possible the axle can be bouncing in and out of the transaxle? I have heard some people say when they replaced the axles, the axles just pop out of the socket and they didnt think they were supposed to do that. I too have noticed that when I did my ball joints a few years ago. So, I dont know if the "range of motion" is changed when a TL is lowered or not, that may cause the axle to jiggle in the transmission socket.. whatever that is called.. It may not be called a transaxle.. I dont know. But I do remember when I put on those TEIN coilovers several years ago, "EVERYTHING" rattled on the suspension. haha It was so bad I had to take them off and resell them

 

Yes.

The adjustable ones are adjustable...so they have more features.

Skunk2 balljoints are known to fail pretty quick. They're low profile, though, so if you have a car whose camber you need to adjust because of some other mod, then you're usually accepting that "this is as good as it gets".

If you're just considering a replacement for the sake of maintenance, the best part in the world is the factory arm.

 

Yes, you just won't have a working sway bar as soon as you disconnect even 1 link.