Hey guys im looking to get some help with my explorer. Its a 93 4wd. For a while now ill been hearing some loud clunks from the front end going down my rather bumpy dirty driveway. Also at highway speeds theres a noticeable humming noise coming from the front tires and last time i checked the inside of the drivers side tire only has some minor scuffing. Now a few months back when i had it inspected I had the guy do a very thorough inspection because i just bought the vehicle and the ball joints which i would suspect to be the clunking passed with flying colors. Any ideas on what i should check for on this? Should i check the ball joints again? Thanks so much for any help you could give me on this problem.

 

Radius rod bushings act like you describe but it is a good idea to have the front end checked by a REPUTABLE mechanic, as here there be monsters arrrrr!

 

The humming noise makes me think that you problem may be a wheel bearing. My girlfriend's 96 explorer had the same symptoms as yours and that is what it turned out to be. Hers is also a 4wd.

 

I replaced the wheel bearings a month or so ago. Thanks for the help though!

 

Hey Mudder. I have a 1993 Ex, 4x4 XLT that I bought brand new with 25 miles on the odometer. It now has 175K miles on it and of those miles, I bet I put on 174K myself as the driver. For 13 years this car has been my daily driver. I think I can tell any noise, creak, vibration, shimmy...in 2 seconds.

But I have the infamous clunk you describe. I thought for sure it was a ball joint because I replaced everything else on the front end. Did all 4 ball joints this past weekend and the frickin clunk is still there. I get it under heavy braking, backing and then braking, extreme articulation - off road typically. Anything that really torques the front end. I am thinking it is the radius arm connection to the Ibeam - you know, right where the shock mounts. I think those 2 hefty bolts might be a little loose.

Reason I think this is that also this weekend, I R/R the front diff to reseal the casing with new RTV. Too many years of oil leaks and it was getting worse fast. In doing this part of the job, I had to pull off the driver's side radius arm bushing bracket and pull/rotate the radius arm back under the frame to get clearance to remove that 1 goofy pivot looking diff bolt on the backside of the diff. So I am thinking, if I can, not easy but, if I can rotate this arm, there must be clearance. If there is clearance - I clunk can happen.

I will get under there this weekend and try to torque the hell out of those 2 bolts. I have a 30 " long 1/2 drive breaker bar that needs a workout.

As far as the hum on the highway, my truck did that too. I heard it on Saturday past and checked the wheel bearings - too much slop. The right front tire was feathered heavy on the inside - this was the noise. If I turned left, noise went away, right it was worse. So I went ahead and did the ball joints, diff leak, new rotors, bearings, pads.

I have a terrible 65 MPH vibration. That now after all this work got to terrible, 10x worse than before all this work. Either it's the alignment, which I need to get done, or just bad tires now.

Oh the other thing I tell my 3 year old son when he says, "Dad, it hurts when I do this" is "Bryce, then don't do that". Think about it.

 

Do the 93's have the torsion bar front end? There is supposed to be some sort of Kevlar pad asscoiated with the torsion bar that wears out. I read about it on a thread a while back while looking at how to fix the infamous Explorer driver's side lean/list and came across this. Mine did not clunk at all until I got the torsion bar re-tweaked. Now it clunks quite a bit.

 

No Texan. These all had twin I beam, TTB, until 1995 when it went to independent IFS with the torsion bar.

I haven't gotten to it yet but I'm pretty sure it's the bolts attaching the radius arm to the i beam. The on on top is a little tricky since there is a stud the extends down to clamp the bracket and the top of the stud is where the coil spring retainer is attached with another nut.

 

Well that didn't work. I only got to the left side but I rmoved the coil spring and torqued down the radius arm bolts on top and bottom. Put it all back together and it still clunks. The top I got about 1/4 turn but the bottom I couldn't budge. I didn't get to the right side but I think the noise is coming from the left.....what next?