johnlocke

Ok ... I know very little about suspensions. I bought my rig with old man emu front shocks (not lifted, just had those in place of stock), and it seems to do pretty well ... good suspension travel at the low speeds I've taken it around some rough ground.

The problem is when it gets loaded quickly. If I hit a bump too hard that loads up the front suspension, I get a grunt that almost sounds like the tires rubbing against the car, or maybe sounds like rapid fire anti-lock brakes kicking in. Either way, it machine guns for about a quarter of a second.

Interestingly, I just noticed that I hear the same thing if I hit the brakes real hard while traveling kind of fast. Now obviously that will load up the front suspension, but I didn't think it'd give me the same response as hitting a drainage ditch too fast or something.

Where should I look for the issue? I haven't seen any strange wear on the tires (31's on stock suspension, so I thought rubbing /might/ have been possible) or on the fender walls or even marks inside the fenders on the jeep frame. Not sure how I could recreate the issue while it's parked and I can actually get my head over there to find out where the noise is ... maybe have some buddies jump up and down on the hood, eh?

BC61

Look at the plastic that connects the fender flares to the inner fenders, good bet your tires are rubbing.

93gc40

you can recreate flex by using a set of wheel ramps or just jacking 1 wheel. 31" will rub on the front of the flares and on the control arms. You need to trim the plastic a little and maybe the steering stops.

kansas_jeeping

rivercrazy

x2 rubbing. Throw on a 2" budget boost. That should give you the clearance for the tires (and the ground) and be a lot cheaper than new tires.

johnlocke

So, it appears I have 30's on there, not 31's. I couldn't see any evidence of rubbing on any plastic parts or on the tires themselves.

I took a buddy out driving so our ears were a little more stereo, and between us, we kind of think the sound is mostly coming from the front left. It happens only when I quickly load the front suspension (a rough bump, a quick stop).

His thought is possibly old seals inside the shock on the front left. If that seems to make sense, I have a set of four shocks I can replace them all with (swapping the old man emu for rancho's if I did that).

johnlocke

So I found the problem (just posting the solution on here as it's a bit unusual). Had a friend look at it, and the "grunt" really was the front brakes. They were loose enough that they were rattling around a bit when coming to a hard stop. They got that way (in theory) because the rear brakes were not adjusted properly and really weren't being used in stopping.

He noticed because the front brakes were getting hotter than they should. Hot enough now that I probably can't turn the rotors. It'll be a full replace when it's time to do brakes (on both the front and the rear), but for now, adjusting the brakes so the rear brakes are actually /used/ in stopping the car has virtually eliminated the noise. Now it only makes that noise just before the ABS kicks in (only if I'm stopping /really /hard).