Gentlemen, I could use your help diagnosing a front end clunk on my 2WD 2004 6.4 V-10 Excursion. The truck has never been driven in winter. It has 90,000 total miles and is very clean for is age. When I drive the truck slowly, walking speed, across uneven ground I get a pronounced clunk or pop sound out of the left front corner. It occasionally clunks when I transition from backing up to going forward. Recently the clunk has been getting more frequent and I THINK I feel a little thump in the left front corner of the drivers footwell, inside on the floorboard. Tire wear is even. The truck tracks straight. The sound has never been heard while traveling down the road. It only occurs at speeds less than 10 mph.

To try and diagnose the problem I.

1... disconnected both sway bar end links, to eliminate the sway bar as a source, and then drove the truck. It still clunked.

2. Next, I put the truck up on a drive on lift, and raised each front wheel, in turn, supporting that corner using an under hoist lift stand, so that I could rotate and wiggle the wheel. Wheel bearings feel fine.

3. Next, I took a long pry bar and levered the suspended tire up and down while closely observing the ball joint movement. There was a little, very little, bit of vertical play in the ball joints but not (I don't think) enough play to make a clunking sound.

4.The next thing I did was examine the body mount insulators between the chassis and body. Looking closely at the mount under the driver's left foot, both the upper and lower round rubber isolators appear to be in near perfect condition; no dry rot, no tears or deformation.

5.The final thing looked at was the radius arm bushing. It looked in great shape .

Does anyone have an suggestions for me to trying to locate my 'popping thump or clunk' sound?

 

Sounds like mine only passenger side. Been that way since I bought it 200k miles ago. I did all of those checks and found nothing. It has finally stopped and I don't know if it was the wheel bearings or not but I changed my front rotors and bearings a year ago and haven't heard it since. It could have been the rotors/caliper binding. It used to drive me and wife nuts backing out of drive and as turning or shifting to forward it would clunk like something is about to break. I think it could be the axle pivot bushing but they are such a pain to change I haven't done that yet so I'm thinking the rotors was it.

 

Look at the bushings for both the I-beams. I had the same thing happen that took a little over a year to figure out. There is a kit which allows you to do it in place so it won't have to be removed and pressed in.

 

You have a link on that Kit ??? Know I go to do that in the future. Thanks !