popping from front end

[durecell]

hello all,
new to posting on the forum, but have been surfing it for a few months now. hopping I can find the answer to my mystery sound. I have a 83 4wd sr5 tercel. I call her the durecell cause shes the copper top. gold in color if you get the comparison. I rescued her from the back 40 of my parents farm last spring. she was returning to the earth. my mother bought this car brand new in 83 so I know where its been and whats been done to it. the last 10 years not a whole lot.

im fairly well versed in mechanics, growing up on a farm and having to work on multiple old vehicles

so to move on to my problem, when I first started driving the car after her rescue I noticed a popping noise when I would stop or accelerate. so I proceeded to replace the old worn loose parts. replaced ball joints, entire rack and pinion unit along with tie rod ends. read about the stabilizer bar issues these cars have. so I replaced the bushings with Toyota ones along with new sleeves. bar ends looked good, cleaned and primed them. also replaced control arm bushings. they were very rusty and had trouble getting them out but the welded nuts on the frame looked good. went to get it aligned and the guy showed me the left bearing was bad. so I replaced both front bearings. essentially everything on the frontend has a new component on it. also repaced strut mounts. struts are ok took them out and inspected them. remember replacing them about 10 years ago when I drove it in highschool. still no fix.

I then moved on to maybe it is motor mounts or tranny mount. tried that too still no fix. then one day I noticed that the passenger side front tire could be grabbed from the top and pulled out (with weight on the suspension) and it would make a pop sound. could I have gotten a bad ball joint? can a strut tube or spring be moving around causing the play. the control arm doesn't move and there is no obvious play other the tire movement in and out. any help would be appreciated.

note: I noticed the play in the tire before and after I replaced the bearing, so I don't think its a bad bearing.

alignment went good and it tracks good. no wear on the tires. it has manual stearing and I replaced the rack and pinion bushings when I didi the unit.

thanks

[dlb]

welcome, durecell. good on you for rescuing the beast. no point in letting them rot and rust, put them to use!

strut mount was going to be my first suggestion but i see you did that. it's possible that the new ball joint you installed is bad but these cars only have ball joint and it's at the bottom of the steering knuckle so any play in it would probably be found there. i find the best way to inspect them is to remove the steering knuckle so you can test the ball joint with no load on it. as long as it's firm and without slop, it should be good. also, any problem with the ball joint would likely have been found during the alignment.

i would actually look at your driver door hinges. i had a similar popping sound that occurred when going over bumps. i found when i opened the driver door i could grab the rearmost part of the door and lift it quite a bit. i replaced the hinge with a good one from a wrecker and the sound disappeared. or you could try whacking the hinge with a hammer and large punch, like this guy did. that's even cheaper and easier.

https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php? ... 16&p=28985

[Petros]

welcome to the forum.

what about the upper strut mount? there is a bearing than can go bad and causes noises, not really any hazard because it can not move much, but they can make noises when they are breaking down. another possibility is that metal chassis might be weakened and fatigued so it creeks and pops when it flexes. that has happened to my daily driver since it has almost 350k miles on it over gravel roads.

[durecell]

thanks for getting back
dlb- funny u should mention that about the door hinge. I read about that and sure enough that was the cause of the creaking coming from the drivers side, but the passenger side is tight. ill try that with the ball joint, maybe I got a bad one.

petros- I replaced the upper strut mounts not to long ago and that didn't fix it. you may be right about the chassis. it does it when weight is shifted from braking hard or accelerating hard or turning hard. just annoying more then anything.

is there a possibility that the stabilizer bar is moving around in the control arm. I noticed that even though I replaced the bushings, that the one in the back compresses a lot but the one donut in the front doesn't. is that normal. maybe the backing plate is bottoming out on the sleeve before it is getting tight and allowing movement. just a thought. I notice that if the right tire slips on dry pavement that I get a lot of wheel hop. more then I would expect. almost like the front end is not as tight as it should be.
thanks again

[dlb]

it does it when weight is shifted from braking hard or accelerating hard or turning hard

have you checked the CV axles for rotational play? i would remove the steering knuckle and hold the inboard joint while trying to twist the outer splines in either direction. if there's any play, the joint is on its way out. you can try just jacking the front up with the wheels on, leave it in gear, and try to spin each wheel, but i find a certain amount of play in the diff is normal, which is why i prefer to hold each end of the axle i'm testing.

is there a possibility that the stabilizer bar is moving around in the control arm. I noticed that even though I replaced the bushings, that the one in the back compresses a lot but the one donut in the front doesn't. is that normal. maybe the backing plate is bottoming out on the sleeve before it is getting tight and allowing movement.

if this is the case, you should be able to tug or pry on the bar with a tool and feel the play. the sleeves on the ends of the sway bar are to keep the nuts and retainer or backing plate from being overtightened so they actually should bottom out. i have found it normal for the rear bushing to compress more than the front.

[marlinh]

Have you tried having a helper pull on the tire like you did and feeling various suspension parts to try to identify the movement?

[durecell]

dlb- guess I forgot to mention that I also replaced both front axles. ive done so much to this little car it slipped my mind. ill check for play with a pry bar on the stabilizer bushings but im guessing that's not the issue.

marlinh- I kind of tried that with my wife helping(but shes not very strong) and it seemed to me like it was play in the spring where it mounts to the strut assembly but I didn't see how that could be possible there should be a lot of tension and very little ability to move. is it possible it has worn out and is allowing the spring to move. could the springs be bad?

im still lost on this but will try anything now.

I appreciate all the information it has helped with many problems thus far. now if I can only figure this one out.

[dlb]

geez, this is a tough nut to crack. i'm grasping at straws but what about the little engine shock absorber? i have just removed it from all of my tercs since i have never seen one in working condition. you might try removing it, or even replacing it. be aware though that new ones are not available and you will have to make something work, like this.

https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8140&p=59015

forum member sdoan had a great write up on one that he made out of cheap parts from a hardware store but alas, all the pics got lost in a server change.

[durecell]

and again I forgot something else. I replaced the engine dampner with an aftermarket one. I made some new mounting plates to make it work, but seems to help some

[ARCHINSTL]

and again I forgot something else. I replaced the engine dampner with an aftermarket one. I made some new mounting plates to make it work, but seems to help some

What was your source - got a link?
This is what I made back in 2010: https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php? ... 53&p=44097
Tom M.

[dlb]

you're killing me, durecell. ok, how about the trans oil level? if the level is or was low, it might be possible the diff was damaged and has play in it. that might be a long shot but i'm really digging this mystery.

[Petros]

I think it is almost certainly the frame flexing and popping from age. How many miles on on the car, and are a lot of them on gravel roads?

carefully inspect the welds on the strut towers, use a magnifying glass. On mine there are tiny cracks around all of the welds and it looks like there is movement between the parts such as where the fender bolts to the fender well. The movement of the frame will cause it to pop and creak. I adapted a Nissan strut tower brace to work on my Tercel, you can also make the one for the MR2 fit in the Tercel if you shorten it. this made the pops on mine much less, and it seems to stiffen the front end (the chassis is already relatvily soft and flexible, with aging welded joints and fatigue, it would be even softer). The strut tower brace reduced the popping.

If you can not find any loose parts in the suspension it is likely a weakened frame that is flexing more than it should. this is not unusual with cars that have very high miles. their design life of the car was somewhat under 200k miles or so, and I am coming up on almost double that mileage. I doubt it is major safety issue, just annoying. I thought when I go to replace the engine some time I would stitch weld all of the subframe seams to stiffen it up.

here is a picture of my strut tower brace, from a Nissan I found in a wrecking yard (though it took extensive modification to make it fit).



here are the extensive cracks in my strut towers, notice the "ring" around the spot welds, those are tiny cracks that caused the paint to chip off:

[durecell]

dlb- tranny is solid and strong, I don't think so but you never know. I had the originally tranny brake a tooth off the front ring gear. replaced it with a pull and save one and then that ones input shaft got all stripped out. the one that's in there now is nice and strong came out of a pull and save wrecker with only 120,000 miles on it.

tom- the engine damper I used was a 6" aluminum body one with just plastic bumpers inside that can be somewhat adjusted. not hydraulic or anything. I got it from speedyracer.com http://www.speedyracer.com/Universal-En ... e%20damper
I found that with new motor mounts its vibrates a lot more but I put on my old motor mounts and the vibration is gone and I get the benefit of it shifting better. I read that the stock engine mounts were softer then aftermarket ones and that is why Toyota put the engine damper on was to help with the little rotation the engine developed and vibration. I figured for 30$ it was worth a shot. I like the write ups on the ones that you guys fabricated. didn't feel like doing that much thinking though.

wow I think petros may be on to something. the car has about 240,000 miles on it. I drove it in highschool and was very hard on it. regret that now. I used to drive down gravel roads way to fast over wash boards and take it off road. I wish I wouldn't have done that. if only I could go back. I will look at the welds and what not tonight after I get off work, but that sounds more like it. I knew that someone would figure it out or at least have a good explanation of what it might be. ill look into a tower brace. thank you all for your input. this site is truly amazing. keep it up guys and ill try to give my input on what I have experienced.