On-car inspection of rear pillowballs?
 

Is there a way to tell if your rear pillowballs have any play in them with the arm on the car?

I have a bit of noise from the rear suspension, but I've replaced the pillowballs that obviously had free play. I can't really just from pulling on the tire if any others have free play.

It's been a few years but as I recall it helped having someone else rock the wheel while I held on to the different suspension arms. I had noise but none of mine were obviously sloppy...seems like that was how I finally found them. I could feel it, but couldn't see it. The thing is, once I confirmed it was indeed a couple pillowballs I just change them all. Figured if two were gone the others wouldn't be far behind.

if it clunks in the rear, it's the pillow balls.

You can't really tell when everything is bolted together. It's a lot easier to see how loose and worn they are when the pillowballs are not fastened to anything.

That has been my experience, but I just had it aligned (which is a huge PITA since my car isn't road legal) and would prefer not to take the suspension apart again.

Not so much a clunk as a slight chatter.

The really loud noises I had were coming from the shock bottoming out.

If you mark the cam bolt and washer to the subframe and don't adjust the toe link length, you should be good.....unless everything is truly flogged out. I can't imagine how you'd get a good idea of the condition of the components disassembled - on the hoist rocking the wheel with someone behind is the way you'd see a mechanical workshop checking them.

It has been my experience that you can feel free play in the pillowballs if you take the arms off.

I will give the two-person technique a try at some point.

You have a rather large lever with a wheel. All I've ever been able to determine with an arm off is if the dust boots are rooted and if the spherical moves more freely than a new one.

Grab the tire at 3 O'clock and 9 O'clock and rock back and forth with bad pillow balls you'll see it move and will feel it's not tight and clunks. Also replace the inner and outer toe control rod bushings when doing the pillow balls as they tend to need it at the same time.

you will be amazed how tight the rear end feels after the new bushings are installed.

My toe control rods are aftermarket pillowballs and I replaced them already. I wonder if they aren't where the NHV is coming from, and not a loose OEM pillowball in the arms.

for what it's worth, previous owner had installed aftermarket toe control links, and car had original pillow balls (about 50k on them). Replaced toe control links with originals + new OEM bushings, and replaced all pillowballs, and clunk went away. I mean that's over $500 in parts but they are basically a wear item on these cars. if you want quiet and smooth you've got to go new OEM.

Get out your pry bar and get creative with pivot points. In my experience not all pillow balls were worn out. Some were still tight off the car. No sense in doing extra work/ spending money if you can narrow it down to a few bad apples.

I'm starting to wonder if the noise isn't from the springs or the sway bar joints. Having no interior means I hear every little noise that isn't masked by the exhaust noise...