308gt4 R front end Clunk

Resurrecting the old gt4 this summer. The car (registration sticker 1989) has slowly risen from out of the back end of the old barn. We drained the oil, gas, brake fluid, rinsed out the carbs (tubes, jets, idle mix, needle valves...), washed out the inside, replaced the timing belts and bearings, (thanks Birdman) cleaned the totaly oxidized (non-conducting) points, reset the timing, New fuse box, all new rubber fuel lines, last week got her running! Had to turn out the 8 idle mix screws to 4-5 turns and drilled the upper idle screw from 0.5 to 0.55. made a big difference in running. Issues: still running pretty rough, some smoking (white), all idle jets turned out 4-5 turns, cyl No. 4 popping back sometimes,(tried half or one turn additional on idle mix), on and on. Car starts, idles and is running pretty good but this is no Honda. Took some laps around the back road and there is significant CLUNK from the front right wheel. (not the left) I can duplicate it by pressing down on the R front fender. 50 lbs push and there is a heavy clunk. I squeezed all 4 ball joints and they are all the same. Solid lower BJ and high strength spring for upper (L and R). I pulled the right upper all joint and the bushings are solid and stiff. All the bushings are tight but ugly (both sides). IF I lift the RF tire with a crow bar and fulcrum it clunks pretty bad. A stethiscope on the joints does not run up any significant culprets. Steering is good and stiff with no play. What is up with this... any ideas. I don't want to start replacing ball joints and bushings on a car with 20k on it unless I know what it is. Help! any ideas.

 

Yes, the steering is tight and the steering rack mounts are good. The tie rods have no play. I am convinced the spindle is rotating about the solid lower BJ. I jacked the car up an inch or 2 at the lower shock mount to overload the suspension and lifted the tire up with the crow bar and I still get the clunk. This eliminates the lower inner bushings and the spring/shock assembly as there is a huge load on the spring and the lower A frame sets on the Jack. The tire lifts quarter inch and I get the clunk. By lifting the tire and thereby the spindle I do not modify the shape of the 4 bar A frame linkage very much. Though I possibly rotate the spindle and load the upper BJ and the upper bushings. What get me is the minimum load (50 lbs push) needed to clunk while driving (900 lbs per tire) or 1200+ (on the jack) No matter what conditions I create the force to clunk is still fairly low even with a high force loading the suspension.

I may swap Upper BJs left to right as I am getting pretty good at dismantleing.

*I did mess up the the threads on the Rubber brake line. I will order 2 new rubber brake lines. Where can I get the little steel S line. Can I make a new one with flares. Are the treads any kind of standard brake line??? HELP

 

The sway bars would be a good thing to look at as the R front corner is what moves independent of the left. So there is relative motion L to R. The body mount busings look new replaced with Eurothane bushings and are secure. The dog bone link bushes look just OK but in the case where I jack the lower side A frame up to be solid ther is no relative motion of the bottom side A frame as it sets on the jack. Though if I load the fender the bushings are rotating slightly. This is a CLUNK not a tap/click/bump metal to metal with some space to move. That is why I tend to think the noise is being transmitted through the Spindle or frame or some big stuff.

Very first drive I stopped to be sure I had attached the wheel!

 

News on the old Clunker:
Car is 200 mi away so I can't go and shake the top of the tire (again) to test for upper BJ flex.

Great info on the shocks, though not so great from cost perspective. This means full take down and all new busings too while I am in there. An upper BJ can be replaced in an hour or 2. Full take apart means 3-4 weekends December in the unheated barn or $2-3K to Mario in Red Bank.

Good news again: if it is the shocks, then it is safe to drive around without parts falling off.

Should I send to Koni for rebuilds at ?? weeks (to rebuild or new that is the question???) or $600 for 2 new fronts to Superformance UK?

My dad (85) drove this '84-'89 to work and back, then moved to another proj. in 90 drained and preserved the car as best he could with big plans on returning soon. Soon finally came along this summer. Been having many weekend bonding events getting the old clunker rolling again. Pretty cool blasting up and down the back road now that it is running pretty good.

 

The upper jet is the one we drilled open. I used a .019, .020, 021" pin gauge to determine the size, then used the milling machine and a .021 drill bit to open them all up. (2 were already .0216=.55mm??) I did not open the side holes in the jet only the center tip hole. I am sure Weber sizes the side holes appropriatly to match the center hole so I may go and buy a set of new correct .55s and a set of .60s. Thanks Birdman for the comment in your post about jet size improving performance.

Interesting note: The car was filled with all new clean regular gas (10% ethanol). The car idled OK 900-1000 and ran OK. We drained and converted to Premium last week and the idle went up to 1200-1800 and needed to be adjusted down and reidle mixed.

 

Back on to CSI (Clunk Scene investigation) after a week or so off living real life we pulled the sway bar to isolate the shock and sure enough the the clunk remained. So after lots of fiddling around all that is left is the shock. So out with the 2 of them and off to KONI. Looks like $200 each as estimate.