S70 Front Suspension Check

[Warren561]

I've got a 2000 S70 NA 5-sp auto with 164k miles.

I'm planning on jacking up the front end and inspecting the front suspension. How does one check each component for wear? It it best to just take everything apart to evaluate if it needs to be replaced? If I'm going to do that, I might as well just replace it?

Specifically, how does one know if the inner or outer tie rod is bad?

What about the sway bar end link? Will there be enough "load" off the wheel if I jack up the car? Or should I just take it off to see if its bad?

I recall that on my RWD F150, I can check the ball joints by (jacking up the front end and) holding the tire at the 9 and 3 position (and 12 and 6) and trying to wiggle.

Stuff that was done already:
Struts and spring seats (aka strut mount bushing) all replaced at 90k miles.
Passenger side control arm replaced at 70k miles.

The reason, I want to do this check is that I have a very subtle "pop" sound (from the front passenger side) when I hit a bump or pot-hole. In fact, the sound that is generated by the passenger side (when hitting a bump on that side) doesn't match with the driver's side. The driver's side sounds "normal" whereas the passenger side makes a "clunk" or "pop" noise. Hard to explain.

Thanks in advance!

[Ozark Lee]

The method you used for checking the F150 ball joints will work for your Volvo. On the Volvo there is only one ball joint, the lower one. If the joint is bad you need to replace the entire control arm.

The sway bar end links can be a bit trickier since the sway bar loads the joint when one wheel is off the ground. While the car is on a jack stand I use a floor jack below the control arm to "un-load" the joint and at that point you can check the joint for tightness. The pop may actually be a loose nut on the sway bar end link, it is very easy to torque it down while the bolt is bound up in the hole. The nut will torque to specification but it still won't be tight. That is more of an issue right after the link has been removed since they rarely loosen up on their own.

The pop may also be a spring seat going south. Use a wrench on the nut at the top of the strut, the nut will move but it shouldn't move much and it will feel "rubbery" on a good spring seat. If the nut will spin the spring seat is bad. Don't get too carried away testing it and put too much force on the nut or you can break an otherwise still good spring seat.

...Lee

[Warren561]

Thanks for the info Lee. I got around to checking the car today.

The top nut on the stut turns about 1/4" inch in either direction. It feels rubbery. So, I guess its okay. The spring seats have about 65k miles on them. The strut bearings are original (the date code says 99), so they've got about 165k miles on them.

I jacked up the car and there's not much play on the ball joint when I do the wheel movement check. I'm going to conclude that the ball joint isn't the source of my noise.

However, I noticed that my sway bar links (both sides) may be bad. The boots are all torn too. I found some Lemforder sway bar links on Amazon for 19.75$ shipped. So, I guess I'll be replacing both of them.

I also noticed that the passenger side (where my noise seems to be coming from) rack & pinion boot is torn. As you advised (with the car's front end on jack stands), I put the floor jack under the control arm and raised the wheel to ride height. There's some "noise" and play on the tie rod. I suspect the inner tie rod is bad due to the boot being cut and crap getting in.

I ended up spraying some spray grease into the boot (on to the inner tie rod). I went around for a drive and I didn't hear the noise. Thus confirming my suspicions that a bad inner tie rod.

So, any advice on what brand inner tie rod? I've got the SMI rack. FCP has some Lemforders. IPD has some TRW inner tie rods for the SMI rack. IPD claims that TRW Inner Tie Rods are Original Equipment for the SMI rack. So, Lemforders or TRW?

I noticed that Moog makes inner tie rods for the SMI rack too. I've had good experiences with Moog stuff on my F150. But, is Moog good for Volvo stuff?

[Ozark Lee]

Inner tie rods haven't been a huge problem on these cars so the depth of experience with the different brands of replacements is fairly shallow. TRW, MOOG, and Lemforder are all excellent so I wouldn't have any hesitation about putting any of them on my car. I seem to recall that the outer tie rod ends that came out of a blue Volvo box were indeed TRW.

You are lucky that all the bad boot did was tear up the tie rod end. Many times a bad boot leads to a bad seal leak on the rack itself and changing the rack on these cars is no picnic.

...Lee

[Warren561]

Sounds good, Lee.

I went ahead and ordered a set of Moog Innter and Outer tie-rods. I went to with Lemforder for the rubber boots/bellows.

I ended up going Lemforder with the Sway Bar Link rather than Moog. 1) the Moog part was almost twice the price of the Lemforder. 2) while it appears that the Moog is beefier than the Lemforder, there appears to be some issues with fitment. 3) the grease fittings on the Moog can't be installed, apparently (from a posting here on MVS) they have clearance issues and they shear off.

I'm going to try to tackle this one myself... we shall see how this goes.