In the past week or two I have had this horrible clunking noise every left turn. I associated it with a bad passenger compliance bushing because it was visibly sagging. I took it to a shop today and had the LCA removed and new bushing pressed in.

Upon removal of my passenger LCA I noticed the mounting holes for my passenger side LCA has been "widened" out some more. The holes are only supposed to be just wide enough for the bolt to slide in and out without much wiggle room.

With the new compliance bushing pressed in, my vehicle still makes a horrible clunking noise on left turns only.

I am pretty sure I have found the problem. I believe since the holes are now worn and oblong/oval shaped it is allowing the bolt to make vertical movement up and down even when the nut and bolt are tightened all the way. The LCA shifting in the hole is causing the clunking noise. Over time it was widening the hole bigger and bigger. Aluminum shavings are even visible in these pictures...

Will a aluminum welder be able to fix this? Weld a piece of aluminum over the affected holes and drill the correct holes so the bolt lines up like it should?

There is no way in hell I am going to spend $1700 for a new subframe and pay a shop labor to install it. I know it will require a lot of hours and the job will most likely exceed $3,000 total.

 

I can think of two ways to fix that.

1) weld the hole all the way up and redrill it.

2) sleeve it. Find a piece of tube or pipe with an id the same as the bolt and then drill the holes to tight tolerance and slide the sleeve in.

There has to be some aluminum welders around there in dallas.

 

It called tig welding and most shops can have it done, it they don't do it. Race or fabrication shops will have one.

 

Not to be a dick but just to be informative...


GTAW = Gas Tungsten Arc Welding most commonly referred to as TIG
FCAW = Flux Core Arc Welding (Welding Wire has Flux in it) most commonly referred to as MIG
GMAW = Gas Metal Arc Welding (Solid Wire - no flux) most commonly referred to as MIG
SMAW = Shielded Metal Arc Welding most commonly referred to as Stick


Any one of these methods can be used to weld aluminum it just depends on the welder and the equipment he has. A lot of heavy duty truck shops and boat repair places have aluminum welders for since they repair the aluminum dump beds and aluminum hulls of the boats. Put a request for services on craigslist. You can normally find mobile welding guys trying to make side money on stuff. A $50 would probably get it done.

 

Thanks for the info. I would be lucky to get it done for $50.

I'm actually expecting $200+ range but if I can get it done for less than that's better.

 

I can fix it for you... 682-478-8246