Hi all, I'm in a quandry here. I've been plagued by a front end rattle over bumps in my 99 K1500 burb. I never considered the shocks because they were fairly new and were rated as having pretty good quality (3 yrs. old 20K miles KYB monomaxes). Anyway I had my tires rebalanced the other day and the mechanic said he heard the clunking and thought it might be the shocks because he also noticed some flat spots on the tires. So I got the truck home and had my brother jump up and down on the front bumper while I got under and watched the shocks. There was difinitely about 1/16 in. movement of the shock barrel in relation to the control arm mount and a resonating clunk with each up and down movement. I checked the mounting bolts for tightness and they were tight so I decided to remove the shocks to have a look at bushings and sleeves. Did that on both sides and to my best investigative powers, I cannot see any obvious problems. Anyone got any ideas about the clunk and the tire wear. I'm wondering if the mounting bolts just need to be torqued down tighter. I assume those sleeves in the shock mount need to be tight enough to be immobilized. Seems like the only way you could see the kind of movement I saw. Would that effect tire wear. Thanks for any ideas.

 

the clunking could be a loose mount stud or bolts ,as far as theb tire wear kinda hard to say but kinda sound's like they are cupping which usually happens when the shock has failed and will not keep the tire in contact with the road ,especially when you brake .

 

Check your sway bar end links. I recently replaced all four shocks and all four sway bar end links (because I needed new shocks and my local shop recommended replacing the end links) and the rear end clunk/rattle over bumps I had is gone. Shocks are pretty cheap too - it wouldn't hurt to replace your three year old shocks (shocks should usually last between 50k and 90k miles but sometimes they fail sooner).

My sway bar end links didn't look bad but they were shot after further inspection. Did all the work myself and it only took a few hours.

 

Thanks fellas for the responses!