Droplinks Needed???

[Gareth Wales]

What are the symptoms of worn droplinks, and how would I check that they're OK?

[Cornishbx16v]

knocking coming from the front when driving over rough ground or speed bumps!
not that easy to check them when they are on the car as they are under pressure from the arb!

[adamskibx]

Umm I think mine might be on the way out too. But the knocking on mine is only when going over a bump with the wheels turned quite a lot. Also, the car seems to go one way or the other very slightly on the motorway now- rear arm bearings perhaps, but there is no sign of the wheels leaning in.

[Way2go]

mmm...this is interesting. I was puzzling over a knock on the left side that I get on those "high rise" speed bumps but not on the rounded ones so this could be the answer.

Once again this demonstrates how helpful this site is even when a question has not been posed personally.

[Geoffrey Gould]

Hi I dont know about the arms leaning as such, mine were noisey/crackly but did not seem to lean at all, but the bearings were completely shot and the "rear wheel steering" was something else. Thank goodness they are cheap and still available.
Cheers.
Geoff.

[Cornishbx16v]

if you do the drop links then chuck the cra in high and using a 16mm socket crack off the nuts on the bottom arms and the arb end whilst there is weight on them as they have a tendancy to spin the ball joint shafts!

[adamskibx]

I probably didnt explain that very well. What I meant by the arms leaning in is that when the rear arm bearings wear, the tops of the back wheels get closer together and the bottom gets further apart. Mine dont apear to do that, but the slight long distance directional instability is starting to happen, and that is possibly rear arm bearing wear, or front bottom arm bush wear as far as I know- or it could be a worn droplink I suppose.

[Jaba]

Worn droplinks can be difficult to diagnose. The noise does not prevent them from doing their job and the wear is not a safety or MOT issue.

You can easily confirm or deny their source of your noise by simply removing them one at a time or just undoing the top or bottom joint and taping the link out of harms way to see if the noise symtoms change.

You cant remove them both together cos the suspension height is taken from the position of the antiroll bar via the drop links. So you always need one there to move the roll bar with the suspension height.

I had a very noisy one last winter. But when the weather warmed up the rattling noise almost disappeared - only to come back when the frosts returned again. So if yours is noisy now, in summer you have been warned.