SPEEDER04 said:
So many views but no answers to the quetion.....wow....all focus owner who have no answers....thank you for the ones who did reply.
Okay, I fixed my car while the dealer spent thousands of Ford's money trying to fix it.
After posting earlier today, I decided that there had to be a logical explanation as to why the car was bottoming out just on the right side, on the smallest of bumps...even pulling into my driveway.
What I found was the swaybar (anti-swaybar) link bolt was hitting the sheetmetal of the car. See pict below. The yellow arrow is the point of impact and subsequent damage. The blue arrow is the line of travel for the swaybar link when the suspension compresses. (EDIT..the swaybar does not move, rather the body comes down to the link bolt! D'oh [8] ) The green line illustrates the bolt which attaches the link to the swaybar.
The swaybar link is attached to the strut towards the top. There are ball joints on each end to allow the sway bar to travel up and down. The next picture pans out a bit and lables the components and circles the impact point.
The next obvious question is why is this hitting? What can be done to fix it? Simple, slide the whole sway bar towards the right of the car.
To do this, one 13mm bolt on each mount for the swaybar bushing had to be loosened on the K-frame which holds the steering rack & pinion and the swaybar. Then I pryed the swaybar a 1/4" to the right and re-tightened the bushing clamps.
A test drive revealed there was now proper clearance for the swaybar to properly travel up and down.
When you take your car in, just ask them to center the swaybar and all should be fine. I can't tell you how nice it is to have that annoying noise gone!
Hope this helps all who read it! [thumb]
Jonas