Check the upper shock mounts just to rule them out. I had a rattle and it ended up being the upper shock piston bolt. Not the 3 mounting bolts but the shock piston bolt in the middle. I used the dead blow hammer technique. Banging around on everything until I could recreate the sound. Sometimes pushing and pulling isn't enough of a shock to produce any impacting rattle.

 

Big update

after about 9 months battling this issue i can finally say it is over.
It is such a big relief you guys have no idea. Im all smiles right now.


It wasnt the bearings, wasnt the axles. Was not the diff mount bushings. Although all of the necessary bushings/pillow ball had been swap out for new ones. The issue was still present. I even went and shock dynoed my new ohlin DFV and hoping it was defective. Nope. Gave them a good tune/revalve while i was at it. Changed endlinks , new sway bar mounts / bushings.
Nada. Problem still ther and very loud. Maybe exhaust is hitting ? Hmm yea. Seems like its hitting. Lets modify it for max clearance. Nope... noise still there. Gutted the entire trunk down to bare chassis. Test drove with midget in the trunk. Confirmed noise was below the car around bottom shock tower area. Maybe the toelinks bad ?
Ok lets put new toelinks in there. Oh heck , lets swap new rod ends on the trailing arms too just to be safe.

What do you know ? Boom. Fixxed. One of the bushings on the trailing to the chassis was binding hard.
Causing the entire rear suspension to bounce and vibrate super hard when i go over bumps. Sooo... now that its fixxed. Im going to enjoy my xmas lol

 

would you be able to specify which one that was? im glad you got it sorted out....

 

After market new toelinks/trailing arms. With combination new pillow *****. So the toelinks had play in them. Very tiny. Not enough to cause any noise when i yank the car left/right ,hard.at speed. Still enough play to be concerned

all my noise is from lateral movment. Going over bumps. The rear would vibrate,bang,thud on and off throttle. Just over all very bad experience. The trailing arm when pulled off and tested was super stiff. Like stuck, bind?..(the end where it mounts to the chassis) Couldn't test that while on the car. Had to be removed to test. So by swaping new rodends with new spearicle bushing on the trailing arm . The hardness went away. Completly. My FD feels like a solid new car. Litteraly Night and Day.

 

That is awesome! So glad you found it, that's the best feeling in the world.

Dale

 

Congrats. Merry Christmas

 

Good job finding that. That was obviously something not easy to diagnose!

 

Anything that's metal-on-metal will amplify any slop in ways you can only imagine. Though I bet you can imagine them pretty well now! Even just a couple thou is plenty to make one hulluva racket especially when all the other joints are spherical bearings. I get to go through that exercise myself this winter and replace all the pillowballs in the rear of my FD. Oh what fun.....

Very glad you found the problem and fixed it. Like others have said, its the best feeling in the world.