Sway bar and steering clunk! 90 Terrano.

[heuge65]

G'day,

So the sway bar bushes on my terrano are knackered. My question (keep in mind I only learnt about these today when I watched bush and link pin changing on youtube) is this. How important is the sway bar, what impact is the lack of these bushes having? What are the possible impacts? I will put in new ones (thanks youtube the great mechanic on the interwebs) soon-ish but I'd be keen to hear from peeps about this.. sway bar stuff. I read on NPORA that some people take it out altogether, what's that about.

Also is this the cause of the following, sometimes there is an unsatisfactory clunk when dialling in turn, mostly when I need to turn sharpish and mostly from a stopped postion. I try to lessen this, in my mind, by dialling in while rolling it seems to help.

If this isn't the cause .. what else?

I took some pics of the bushes, I'm sure those are worthless but the steering arm, where it drops down from out of the engine bay area, there seems to be about 3-5 mm clearance to the bottom, it 'looks' normal but then so might've the bushes rolling around on the sway bar if I hadn't seen it on youtube! So I'll post them soon but I'm reading up how to do this and put them in a thread right now.

[fullthrottle]

I have taken my sway bars out of my truck. Gives it a bit more flex as they do restrict the movement a bit.

HOWEVER, it then becomes a rolly polly on the road. Rolling all over the show with every corner.
This is the trade-off, but as I mainly use my truck off-road, no sway bars is fine for me.

With your clunking, get someone to move the steering for you while you are underneath listening for where the sound is emanating from.

[heuge65]

Thanks for your reply. I hadn't really noticed too much in the drive of the wagon so I'm happy to leave it as is for the moment although I will replace those bushes sometime soon. As for the mysterious clunk it doesn't happen all that much so I guess I'm waiting for something to come loose otherwise once I've replaced those bushes and am confident the clunk isn't from the sway bar flapping around I'll have to proceed as suggested or maybe pre-empt it by taking into a suspension outfit for a check up.

[Dirtydog]

when i got a sas on mine we didnt worry about swaybars, gunna take my rear one out next to see what she flexes like.

[heuge65]

To be honest, I think she is a bit more roly-poly than the other truck I drove. Sway bars ay, who knew?

[fullthrottle]

Here you go....

Before swaybars removed:

and now after swaybars removed:

[heuge65]

I once worked on a container ship across the pacific, we followed 2 cyclones til one stuck on the cooks and one went out in front, we had roll like you wouldn't believe, those pics look a bit like that!

[heuge65]

Great pics though. I don't think my truck in it's current trim would be 'swaying' like that!

[Dirtydog]

far out, thats a great improvement, what shocks have yougot in it?

mine doesnt flex that much, but ive only got 50mm raise shocks in it.

[fullthrottle]

So mine has a 50mm body and 50mm heavy duty spring lift in the rear. I just measured the full travel distance with no shocks in it (making sure the spring remains captured) and then ordered the required shocks with the travel I wanted. Most of the shock manufacturers make a good range, but I found the efs or kyb's had plenty of options to choose from.

[Dirtydog]

cool as, might have to go see my mate with the forklift, and see how much flex i can get out of her,

i imagine it will be alot with the ol solid axle and safari springs in it.

i was looking at swapping to coilovers but dont know yet, still not completely sold..

but anyway, back on topic,

it shouldnt be hard to do the bushes, i tried doing mine but the bolt kept turning around, even with a spanner/socket on either side.

the arm that comes out of the steering box is called the pitman arm for further reference, might help ya with your seach for info, and the one on the opposite side is called the idler arm.

check to see if your idler arm is bent, cause that causes some wierd stuff to happen.

[heuge65]

Sweet!

[cowman]

take a good look at your radius arm bushes, just changed mine and wow! diddnt realise the truck would ever feel like a car to drive

check this out

http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/ ... -bushings/

[heuge65]

I'll be under there tonight checking THAT out. It's good sh*t that site, init?

[cowman]

yea mate plenty of info on there, those bushes dont look to bad till you take em out and sit them beside a new set. mines a 92 with 195km on by the way

[heuge65]

I got a '90 with 160k and a 92 with 340k, the 92 is gone, rusted out a bit in the columns and underneath. Engine/gearbox is a bit poked as well but we got it when it had 80k on it in 2000 and got a bloody good run out of it. It's sitting in the driveway annoying the wife, I think that's a honourable retirement..
The 90 I'm still getting to know, I might take it on a run up Muriwai this weekend but I wanna head up with a couple of other mates if possible just in case as I just had the torque converter changed a few weeks ago and I'm still bedding the truck in to a degree. Until I spotted this site and the NPORA site I'd just send the truck in to Altec for everything except oil changes! That is going to change!!