Rattling up front, possibly rusty strut towers?

[Araesk]

I'm looking at getting a 2G gst, and the only problems I've seen are rusty strut towers such id cut out and weld in a patch. But it seems the front rattles significantly when I hit a bump, could that be from the rusty strut towers and the lack of an alignment anytime soon? Or is that most likely a list motor mount? (The only rust is located in the towers, and it isn't nearly as bad as some of the posts ive seen on other strut tower repair posts.) (It's also a 95 eclipse with 144k.)

 

[Insane20]

I get customers with this same problem every day. I would say it's most Likly going to be your sway bar links and bushings. That's one of the most coming fixes, however it could be your ball joints and maybe even your upper strut bushings themselves. It's unlikely your towers are making that noise unless they are hardly attached which I doubt that's the case.

 

[Araesk]

And thats generally a pretty cheap part to pick up and replace then right?? And it wouldnt be much of a hastle to get at and fix? I know the ball joints and bushings#aren't too bad. Finance, and time wise.

 

[Insane20]

If it's sway bar links that's cheap and easy. If it's ball joints that's where it gets a little pricy because our lower ball joints don't press out you have to buy the whole arm and there is 4 lower arms and 4 lower ball joints total. And you should align afterwards because aftermarket lower arms are not always the exact same size as the oem ones. When I did mine afterwards it would pull to the left untill I aligned it.

 

[Twinturbo120]

Good luck with your lower control arms. I had to cut my freaken ball joints because they welded themselves to the knuckle. I spent a couple of hours taking all four of them off. Use a reciprocating saw if you ever have the same problem as I did. It saved me a lot of time instead of using a cut-off wheel.

 

[Insane20]

the trick to getting the ball joints out on any car is just hit the knuckle with a hamer a few times really hard right where the ball joint goes in at and they pop right out.

 

[Nasty Dream]

I had the strangest noise and found that it made the sound when I sat down into the car. That's when I realized it was the front strut. So I pushed down on the front driver's side fender and produced the noise with the actuation of the suspension.

It sounded like something was coming loose, maybe a bad wheel bearing or suspension component coming loose.

The struts don't last that long, actually. I found that my rear wouldn't even return on its own, when I replaced them. It can cause unpredictable behavior and you can lose control of the vehicle, obviously.