I got a 1998 Explorer XLT 5.0 AWD. Up until recently everythying was fine. When i hit little bumps now i hear a knock from the drivers side wheel area. I was told it was bad lower ball joints, i took it to a mechanic and he said my front end was fine. Now im confused, it still clunks and i dont knwo what it is. help me out.

 

just trying to find out whats up. any help would be reallllly great.

 

Have you checked your radius arm bushings? It will do that when you pull up on a curb or something.

 

You might want to search for CV joints on this forum and the serious-explorations forum. I read about a similar sound where people were shooting grease into the rubber boot dust cover and the noise was going away--at least for awhile.

 

thanks for the info guys

 

Sounds like the bushings. Mine went bad on a '91 Explorer. A friend of mine has a '92 Explorer and he had the same thing go bad. Sometimes you'll hear it as you start to accelerate and when you hit the brakes. Pretty cheap fix too. Good luck..

 

I have a 98 AWD with the same symptom.... mostly on the passenger's side. I have noticed some play and rattle in the linkage end of the tie rods, when I jack up the front end and move the wheel in and out. But I am not sure whether this is normal or if it is the source of the clunking that I hear when I am on a rough road. I have had worn tie rod ends on other vehicles, but I was able to feel this problem in the steering.... I don't in this case. Can someone recommend a test with the vehicle jacked up?

 

i have a 98 explorer and was having the same thing happen. i had to replace the swaybar linkage on both sides. it was an easy fix and around $20. basically the rubber bushings break down after a while and you cannot tight the bolt up anymore as you do not have enough threads.

 

thanks, I'll try it....... now that you mention it, I did notice seperation where they are connected, but ingnored it since I couldn't see signs of wear, but it wouldn't be the first time I overlooked the obvious.

 

Hello,
If you are hearing a series of what I call clicks when you are turning a tight corner then it may be a CV joint but this is very unlikely as CV joints don't normally wear out this soon. I have a 98 Explorer with 72K and the CV joints are still good. You need to check the normal wearing parts first like upper and lower ball joints on both sides, Upper and lower control arm bushings on both sides and especially the sway bar link rod bushings which wear out quite often. My 98 explorer developed a tremendously loud clunk in the front end when turning and accelerating. It also had a strange vibration under the drivers floor on acceleration. After replaceing everything mentioned above the noise still persisted. Turns out that the stabalizing bracket that the front differential bolts to that is welded to the left side of the frame, just under the drivers feet broke free from the frame. This allowed the entire front differential to move throwing the front drive shaft completely out of alignment, thus the vibration and also allow the bracket that had broken loose to slam into the frame every time I accelerated. Very difficult to detect this because the bracket that had broken loose would pop itself back into position. Even when I grabbed onto the front drive shaft and tried to move it up and down I didn't see this until I used a large pry bar and wedged it between the mount and the frame. Only then was I able to seperate the bracket from the frame. The temporary fix was to remove the front drive shaft, thus eliminating the torque from the front differential. The permenant fix was to take it to a shop that has a MIG welder and have them re-attached the bracket to the frame. This required the removal of the the exhause cross over pipe and bending the fuel and brake lines out of the way for the welding to be done. Now there is no clunking noise or vibration from the front end. This is obviously a weakness in design and or consruction from the factory. Hope this helps.
Also if you're tired of burning through sets of front tieres becuase of inside tread wear it's because Ford never equiped their SUV's or trucks for camber adjustment. You have to purchase 2 aftermarket kits, one for each side that replaces the upper control arm bushing bolts with eliptical washers that allow for adjusting the upper control arm in or out. Every time I see a Ford Explorer it has terrible insde tread wear. I went through several sets of tires before someone told me about this. Each time I bought new tires I had the front end aligned in an attempt to correct the inside tread wear and in the 10 years since I owned my Explorer from new, none of the shops that I paid to aligne the front end ever told me that they could no adjust the camber. They just took my money and sent me down the road. Once I had the adjustment kits installed and the front end aligned by a reputable shop I've never had any uneven tread wear again. It's a crime that Ford never equiped their vehicles to have the camber adjusted