The one circled in red is the lower control arm. It attaches on one end to the suspension subframe and then with the ball joint to the wheel carrier on the other end. In the rear, it adjusts camber via a bolt with a cam shaped face on both ends - as you rotate it, the control arm moves in and out. This adjusting bolt passes through a bushing pressed into the arm.
The one circled in blue is called all sorts of things - track arm and thrust arm seem to be common names. It attaches on one end with a simple bolt through a bushing on the control arm, and the other end attached to the chassis up behind the forward plastic fender liner. You really have to remove the fender liner to see where it attaches and to inspect and determine if it is tightly attached up in there.
The last one on the rear not in the picture is the toe adjusting arm. It attachs to the subframe and to the wheel carrier and uses a similar cam like bolt to adjust toe in and toe out in the rear.
All of these suspension pieces have bushings or spherical bearings that need to be checked; all the nuts and bolts need to checked for tightness. You need to do your best to try and move the assembly up and down to see if you can repeat and isolate the noise.
I would lean to the sway bar like you mention. Even if the bolts are rusty and tight, are the sway bar bushings still in good shape? You should be able to see the edges of them squeezing out of the U shaped pice that attaches to the frame. Are the drop links tight and not hitting the control arm when moving up and down?
And don't forget to check the strut mounts at the top of the coil overs - they to can wear out and allow movement up top.
Hope that helps.
BTW - the image is of the front suspension. The subframe in the rear is quite different.
That info does help. So I suppose the point of failure can be in several areas . I think im going to wait till I get three tires/wheels back on the vehicle and on the ground before I start tugging to hard on things.
Is it possible to replace just the bushings in any of these pieces or does it require an entire new assembly?
All of these seem fairly easy to get to and work on so I think ill try and attack this "clunk" myself. If it were the swaybar would it be pretty loud? The clunk is pretty audible.
Im not sure I really understand why this noise is only present at low-mid speeds (5-30mph), can you shed some light on that? Specifically with the swaybar would cause this noise only at these speeds??
Thanks again!
-Ben
You can press out old bushings and press in new ones - sometimes they are hard to find, but it is quite a bit cheaper than buying a whole new control arm. It is easy with a 20-ton shop press - and if you network with your friends enough, you will find someone that has one.
A swaybar noise would be a clunk, I think. I can see it hitting clunking against the U shaped brakcet for example.
Why you only get it as slow speeds? No clue. Would theorize that under higher speeds the load is too great to allow movement or maybe wind noise is keeping you from hearing it.
Finding noises in the suspension can be hard. Take your time, especially if you are not having any whacky tire wear or out of alignment problems.
You are looking at suspension pieces, but don't forget the e-brake is house in the rear brake hat. SOmetimes the shoes get a little hung up and can make noise, or if your e brake tension was adjusted recently, it might have been adjusted too tight and is causing the shoes to knocked around a little.
Other thing back there that can make noise is a wheel bearing. When I have lost wheel bearings on my 986S, it has never been a clunking sound, rather a roring sound under load - BUT, the guy next to me at a track event recently in his M3 had a bad rear wheel bearing, and it clunked intermittently.
I did a quick once-over last night and the bushings all looked OK. They were all pretty consistent from what I could tell. Im going to try and get a closer look tonight after work.
You mentioned tire wear... I did have extremely bad tire wear. The insides of the tires where worn to the wire, the outsides still looked new! It was almost impossible to see the wear without taking the wheel/tire off the car! The tires dont have many miles on them, a little over 20K and I never drive the car hard. My initial thought was the previous owner just had them set aggressively...
Is there possibly a loose/broken part that would cause this kind of wear?
Respectfully,
-Ben