My track bar was loose, but didn't seem like it. The hole had a slight wobbed out look to it. I used a breaker bar and a pipe and really laid into her. That tightened it up and the noise is gone. I know you think it's tight, but I'd suggest getting medieval on it's ***. I'd bet money that's the problem when you turn.

 

Exactly - if you clamp it hard enough, it will NOT move...

 

I'm worried I might over do it and break the bolt. Is that a real possibility?

 

I haven't heard of one breaking, although I have rounded the axle side off a bit before (limited access). The OEM metric bolts are the equivalent of Gr8. The torque spec on them is 153ft-lbs, which absolutely requires a breaker bar or an impact gun, but using the oversized SAE fine-thread I've been able to generate well over 200ft-lbs in the driveway.

 

i'm actually headed down to Home Depot later today to get a 9/16" fine thread grade 8 bolt.

 

Good luck!

Home Depots around here don't have anything close...

you're better off looking in a hardware store.

 

found out for myself this evening.
i'll be hitting ace hardware tomorrow.

 

Well its seems like the Shocks took of it for the time being.. Im still amazed that my ball joints are still in working order after reading about all the ones that went bad with low mileage, some as low as 40K miles..I wonder how many of them were really put through hell and failed .. "what a truck shoud be able to handle"...

Reading through all the pages of failed ball joints, there is a wide range of miles that most trucks had, no smoking gun, no evidence/trend that they were failing at one certain time, I tend to think that many of these early failures were caused by driving habits..

One last thing I do recall, the school where my daughter goes put in speed bumps last year.. i hit those things kinda hard every now and then,,and laughed about it...not long after I remember now the noise started in the front.

 

does somebody have a pic of the bolts and or bracket xlr8r was talking about when somebody is moving the steering and your checking for play ? im still trying to learn these steering parts

 

Here is a old pic I found that shows the bolt that I had problems with. It could also, I guess, be a problem with the opposite side bolt too. Hope that helps.

 

THANK YOU texastd much appreciated

 

Yep - that's where they get ugly...

 

I had a slight clunk in my front end and took it in before warranty runs out. The dealer changed something called a transition bar in the steering column.
It was less that 2 feet long, a universal joint at one end and a sort of U, that matches to a square shaft, I guess, and a bolt goes thru it, at the other end. I was told that that U is a weak point and when steering at slow speed or stopped the U will open up and the result is a clunk under certain conditions.

 

It is actually called an itermediate shaft

Bob

 

my popping always seems to come from the other side- the bolt on the heim joint side.