Hello everybody, Good day to you and welcome back! Glad you guys are here! This is a I think it's a 2002 Pontiac Firebird with some Ferrari Ferrari hub caps on it I Believe this has the 3.8 lit V6 Econo sports car engine in it. Customer states that while driving they hear a loud clunking, knocking noise from under the car somewhere. Ferrari Uh, sounds like something's banging around inside of it. So what we're going to do? we're going to hop in, go on a quick test drive, get it back to the shop space here.

We're going to set it up on the rack inside and take a look down below, see what's going on with our noisy Firebird So stay tuned because this is going to be a very good video uping. Z Hood Look who that guy is. All right climbing on in this unit here. Let's get her fired up.

We'll take her out on a test drive real quick and see if we can't replicate that noise. Looks like our odometer is reporting approximately 157,500 mil you couldn't see on the odometer. Uh, we've got a security light on. That's a little weird since it started and the oil change indicator is indicating that it needs an oil change.

Okay, well, those are kind of minor to the situation. Uh, at hand. Let's address our customer concern first and for foremost, and then we'll go from there. So let's get this unit backed out of here and uh, we're going to hit the road.

Okay, so I'm not really hearing much yet in the way of a clunky noise. Let's uh, Let's make a left and hit the railroad tracks and see if we can't replicate. Hello City truck all right riding along. oil change light went out but I do not hear a clunk yet.

wa though whole car was clunky, the whole thing was like all over the place. All right. let's go around the block, up and over the bridge. We'll try to hit a couple more bumps along the way.

we'll change speed and see. Oh I heard a clunk I heard it right when it downshifted as we came to a stop I heard something in the back. go K I felt it too. All right.

Well yeah, let's go. Uh, let's head over the bridge real quick. I kind of feel it when it shifts. Okay, so there is something going on.

maybe with the rear axle. I hear a clunking noise I can feel a clunking noise. Let's pick up some speed. More Steam All right, nothing so far over these.

uh, minor bumps in the road here. Yep, let's head back to the shop I Want to put her up in the air? We'll do a visual inspection of the underc carriage and then go from there. I Forgot to mention earlier that we have seen this particular Firebird before in the uh last episode. it might have been a two-parter Uh when I first saw this car it came in with an absolutely exploded on the inside AC compressing unit.

The thing was grenaded completely destroyed. We had to pretty much replace the entire AC system to get cooling out of this and it's still holding up, which is good. I Appreciate that. I will go ahead and locate and find the links to those uh, previous videos on this car.

and I'll put them down inside of this video's description so you may peruse those other videos at your leisure. And while you're down there, do not forget to take a look for the Rayman Ray repair website link which can take you to our newly founded merchandise store where we offer high quality. Superior premium level custom merchandise because everyone needs clothing. You know, it's always an unsettling feeling when you're hanging out in a turning lane and traffic's just blowing by you.

It's 70 mph. It's shaking the whole car as they roll by, especially the guys with the trailers. Green Light We're off. Yeah, I'm hearing some more clunks and rattles down below going over some, uh, some terrain grade changes in that intersection back there.

So yeah, there's something definitely going on. Uh, with the rear suspension on this car. It might be an axle problem, but uh, our visual inspection procedure will let us know. smooth Road No noise.

It seems to only happen. Whoa. That was wild. Yeah, this thing's a little little loose and rattly, but it is a convertible after all.

and those convertibles tended to do that. Some let me not run you over, lady, don't worry I See you I See you Hey, A-rod's backing out his uh, his 73 F350 that's Aaron's project for the day. he's down for the week. we're doing some joint shop sharing activity.

What's up buddy? All right, let's get this thing in on my middle rack here. We'll get her all set up and then uh, we'll see what's going on with the uh, the Down Below Carriage Parking The Auto: I think we're good right there. Yep, let's get her parked and power down. Wow! I Got back from the uh the test drive set the rack on this car and the shop cleared out.

Looks like Dave went to lunch Lauren's I think I don't even know if she's even still here and then Aaron's at the computer in the office and now I'm all by myself. Look at that. Trucks are shut off, everything's parked. Must be the end of the week.

Looks like we're finishing up. Anyway, let's run this uh Firebird up in the air here. Let's get down below and see what's going on with this unit. Oh there's Aaron dude I was all Rry all by myself B STS Oo kind like a wall.

it's a sticker. It's like the stickers we used to put on our textbooks in school. It's a chrome like Trapper Keepers It's a chrome sticker. What really set this thing when I first saw was this past set.

More than you can afford Pal Ferrari All righty. let's see what we're working with down here. Let's see. Let let's see.

Let's see. Let's see. I thought I Heard the noise around the rear. so I guess it's best to start in the back and move our way forward.

What do we think? Let's check all of our control arm bushings and whatnots. That one's cool. Shock bushings are all right. A little bit a little distorted there.

It might be torn inside, but that's still okay. What do we have for shocks? Some OEM Spectrums, Some aftermarkets. that bushing is looking good right there. All right.

How about our track bar? What do we call this? a track bar? A pan? Hard Rod Panner Pan Hard This one comment below. What do you call this one? That bushing looks okay. Let's grab a uh, big pry bar real quick and start to apply some leverage to these bushings. This one might have an issue with it.

Look here. I Can see some fresh rubber sticking out from behind the, uh, the metal right there. Yeah, let's get a pry bar and pry bar on this thing a little bit and see what happens. Let's see here: I Choose this one.

Hey you guys you guys I Have an idea. Check this out. Pry Bar Cam: Let's see if this is going to work. Someone's about to get dizzy and upset with me.

Unsubscribe I Mean no, no, don't unsubscribe. Yeah. I Don't know if I don't even think that pry bar Cam is going to work. Let's try something else here.

It's not the greatest look at this. See that that bushing is torn out of there. It's not going to I think flop forward backward too much, but that is able to move around I'm not so certain that uh, we should ignore that. That's definitely an issue.

It is 1,000% of separated bushing. but I don't think that's our knocking noise. Let's check its counterpart here on the other side. Let's see if this one uh has suffered a similar fate.

Okay, similar procedure. Yeah, that one's I don't think it's as yeah, that one's separated as well. Yep, right. We can see it right here.

Look right here. You can see where it's starting to come apart, where it's separated from its outer, uh, outer steel sheath. Okay, the rear bushing on that same arm. Let's see what this one's looking like.

Yeah, that's got a a similar issue. It's not as bad as the front bushing on this side, but it is, uh, it is a little loose. Maybe it's halfway torn. Let's check uh, this other set back here see how this one does.

Not terrible. I Bet if we disassembled it, we would find that it's got some damage going on in there. And this one again. Yeah, we can even hear this one.

Yeah, that's too much. Okay I don't think that's our noise though. not the noise. That's not enough for a clunk sound.

Let's check stabilizer Rod here and see what this one does. Can't really tell. Maybe that might have an issue. Check this next one.

Yeah, that's these are okay. that's uh. there's not an issue going on there. I Don't think that's our noise.

Let's see what else we have here. Maybe it's in the rear end? No. I don't hear it you joint? Nope, don't hear it. Got a slight kind of a leak somewhere here.

Oil right here. Look at all that there's oil. There's oil. There's oil.

same on this side. more oil up here. Oil on the crossmember looks like it's blowing back. Yeah, here we go here.

we go. Got a drain plug or a pan? or a rear seal or something like that. Leak can probably pan look at here. There's a little bit of saturation up here on the front of the pan.

The front cross member has some oil saturation. Couple drips on the bolts up front. All right. So what we've got going on is back here is blowback from driving along.

you catch a drip and it keeps coming back in this direction. So that's all that's the self-lubricating chassis mod. And I spy with my little eye. we have a winner.

Look at that right there. Yeah, I think that's it. Look at that right there look. Well I found it.

Let me give this thing a tug. the uh, it's like a torque arm bushing or something. Or a torque. Yeah, that's a bushing and that would be the torque arm stabilizer for the rear axle.

so the axle doesn't wrap cuz we've got the control arms. Then we've got our bar here. this lateral. Rod So the axle can't move left and right.

but when you apply engine torque or put it in reverse and the opposite torque is applied to the differential case, something has to stabilize it and it looks like the engineers have employed the principles of Leverage and put the end of this torque arm as far forward as possible at the transmission. Okay, so this bushing is blown out and torn up. It needs to be replaced. So how do I get that apart? How's this function here? It looks like there's a this one metal piece here and this end piece hooks in like right through there similar to a fuel tank strap.

It wraps around and then connects up there with that bolt. see or that nut. See that nut way up there. Yep, Okay, well.

I guess I Need to find out if one of those is available or not. Let me go check my computerizing and see if we could even get parts for a 20 something year old. Ferrari All righty. I'm going to put some faith in the the parts system here.

They say they've got one and it looks like it's the right one and it also happens to be red in color so maybe it's going to match this one back over here. So what I'm going to do is uh, while we're waiting for that thing to be delivered, let's pull this apart. I Think we're going to need a 15 mm socket so let's go grab. I think I'll use the electron ratchet 38.

Where's my 15? Is that it? Yep, 15. It is good to go. Oh I failed. You see that I was trying to be slick and show off and do this.

but I failed. Maybe maybe next time. Perhaps Perhaps not I Don't know. Maybe maybe so.

Does it reach? Oh perfect look at that. reaches perfectly. Nope. ha.

neutral drop and uhoh. I need to get a wrench as well. Look at here, that's a through bolt. It runs all the way through.

See it right there. All right. retooling. Need more tools? 15 Yep, so here's what we're going to do.

We'll put the 15 the wrench up there on the bolt side. Then I can run my electron ratchet to get that nut off right there. That's good trying again. let's grab that wrench.

There we go. Okay I've got the knut come here nut. What I'll do is I'll push that bolt out slightly but I'm not going to remove it. There's no need to pull it out.

It may be retaining something and I don't want to disturb that. Whoa, that was a finger Smasher See that could have killed me? Well, maybe that was a little dramatic, but it could have at least, uh, smashed the flang. Uh, what we experienced. there was a sudden release of potential energy.

and when I pulled this, uh, little piece of bracketry away, that energy was allowed to disperse and the thing flew up. So we're waiting on that bushing. We can see here. this bushing.

the old one is coming apart in pieces. some of it's gone. So this, uh, this torque Rod here has been chewing up this bushing for quite some time. Look at.

that rubber's just falling out of it. see if there's any more up there. Uh, negative I See nothing. Okay, let's see.

what's this. Is that part of the old bushing or not? Looks like it might be. but I don't know if I need to remove that or not. it's all broken away.

Get a pry driver. Maybe I can scrape some of that off and give a better surface for the new bushing to sit against. Let's see what happens and scrape this business off of here. That's pretty good.

It's more flusher than it was. All right. I'm good with that. All righty.

Well now I'm in a kind of a waiting game here. I'm waiting for parts that seems to be the Uh mode of operation standard procedure in the business. waiting on parts to show up. when I get that thing, we'll well, hopefully it's the right one.

We can slip it over this flang killing torque arm and get this guy bolted back together. Well, it's not blue so we don't know if it's good. We've got a brand new NE prene uh, torque arm bushing as per the label and it looks like it's got the correct uh, little pattern inside where it fits over that arm. Yeah, that arm.

You see that arm's got that little wave pattern in it up there. So I think that slides over and then we clamp it on with, uh, that little metal piece there. So let's get this thing unpackaged. and I guess we've got to lubricate it something fierce to get it to slide over.

So let's see how how well this is going to go. Let's get into this thing right here. Pop the balloon. A scissors would have worked.

It's all kind of feels sort of slick and lubricated. You know one thing about these? they are a performance upgrade these Neo bushings. but they're super hard and there's no give in these things. So a lot of guys.

I Remember Uh, the Honda people used to swap out engine mounts with these things. There would be like three or four of them and when they did the swap, the entire car was just everywhere. You'd start the engine and the whole chassis would vibrate. Let's get some lubricant installed, snip the end of that off or not.

Probably Could have just torn it off. Over complicating things is my Mo Come on, let's try Sharper R1's snip action. So I guess I just kind of shove that in there and give it a squirt. Suppose it's full and it overflows I Don't know I never lubricated the inside of a radius bushing.

Do I need both tubes? Sure, why not I know less is more but they did give me two tubes so just going to fill it up. fill it up till it overflows. I Don't know if we're getting adequate coverage with the little squeeze pouches, so we're just going to go for the full monty here. Fill it on up.

Got it? That's plenty here. Let's give it a little wipe down here. Get rid of that extra kind of Nast nasty. All right.

Ew, it got crusties on the other side. The back side was all crusty. The loops buil out nasty. There we go.

So this job was going super easy, right? but I'm coming to realize that it's going to require a little bit more effort than I originally had anticipated. You see this little metal business right here. The rubber insert that was contained inside of that was actually riveted on. I'm going to need to remove these rivets in order to get rid of the rest of this rubber because it has a backing plate on it similar to that one that we were looking at over here that I scraped earlier.

Yeah, see that that's a riveted plate I need to pull that plate off of there before that other, uh, bushing is going to fit anywhere near cuz it's designed to fit snugly inside of that. and I think with those plates on, it's going to have too much squeeze. no buo. So I'm going to need to.

uh I'm going have to cut this stuff off. Okay, so I don't know if this is a good idea or a bad idea, but maybe I can get through those little bolts there or rivets rather, with a, uh, little pneumatic saww business. It's not quite as like aggressive as a larger saww. It's for like a trim tool saw, but it's got a blade.

Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't see what happens here. it's either going to work or it's not right. Loud noises warning sorry headphone people.

Aha Uno got one. This one's going to be harder I Think let's try that safety Squints Don't bre the metal I get it out. NOP Not yet. Oh, we got a bolt.

Yeah, it's Is there a bolt? No, no, no, that's just a little plate. it's just stuck on there from the rivet. I Got an idea I'll use a Snap-On pry driver right here. Just pop those rivets out there.

we go that other one. that one's in there. pretty good. Okay, I got an idea.

Here's my idea: Giant linear impact driver, air hammer. uh-oh you lose. but I lose. My gun is broken.

There's one rivet maybe from the back side. Watch this. See, we can't pop it out from the back. Seriously.

I Need a new gun? New gun? It's the Stanley I Bought this at Walmart in 2002 I Win Got all right. Now for this little one over here. the the clasping side. we're going to need to use the vice.

I'm going to do the same procedure. We're going to chop off the rivets and then air hammer the rest off. Stick that. Uh, how about right about right here.

let's see if this is going to work. Watch the thingies. Okay, that's one. Let's flip this around and try to do the same operation on this other rivet.

I Can smell that, uh, hooked rubber from the blade. Getting into the rubber. You smell it. I Smell it.

This one has more clearance. Got it? Okay, change tools. We're going to do the same thing we did on the other one. B Aggressive B Be aggressive.

Kind of. Come on. Got right here. Ping.

Come out rivet, flip it over. We just try it again. from this side. Lock that down nice and toy like good.

Beautiful. Okie Does we've got the plate and the bushing? See how this stuff is supposed to to set up here? It's it's contoured or something. It's like shaped. Yeah, yeah, it fits that way.

So since that is how this thing fits in that little plate, that means that we're going to fit in just like so right. Slide that through little holes. Maybe that's not going to go as easy as I think it is. Okay, stay so they're not going together or not going.

This is not going in while these are together. That's what I was trying to say. So that's going to go like that. and then we kind of smash it and send it over.

All right. So we need to pull this radius arm down. Slide that up all right. Pull that down.

hang on it right there. I need to get this stupid thing out of the way. slide that up and over. get on there more.

That's a really tight squeeze. that's why it wanted so much. Lube No Lie got to shove it in it bottoms out. Oh and the back side's leaking.

It's leaking this. the goo on me there. uh I need a like a half an inch more. pull it down.

almost. nope. little more. pull it down.

think we're good on that. Okay, uh. let me get the plate from the floor here. let her up.

Let it go all the way up there. you go, line it up down and then I need to move that Speedo cable and smash this plate. This is going to be the hard part. Oh yeah.

Prry bar Y yeah I need the pry bar. Okay, let's try this. Let's smash the brake lines. What am I going to pry against? Come on.

Yeah like that. I Guess Wow. There we go now. Push that bolt through.

Aaron's got it. Keep going. Push it. Sor right guys.

If you can't see, can you push it anymore? No, that's bottom. That's all you got. That's it. Okay I need to find the nut right up there.

Yep, there it is. we have. Yeah, one more time I think so. Push that nut or bolt.

Okay, it's so close. Push: Aaron Push push push. I'm prying on the brake lines. At least they're not rusted, no doubt.

Oh I don't have it. Nope. Ah, gravity. Round Three fight.

If the thing that you just tried doesn't work, try the exact same thing again till you get frustrated. It's like that bolt. There it is now. I Reach in there.

sorry folks. if y'all can't see I can't even see. but we've got threads started. We got the threads on.

got her? Yes, where's that electron ratchet? My good man. Will you hold the bolt side and I'll get the uh, the nut side. Give it some torque on your end if you can. I think we're I Think we're good.

wait wait wait wait wait no, we're not good. We got this vent tube smashed in there I think look, oh and is this backwards? Yep, no that's not backwards cuz it's got the Contour here. But take it off. We did it wrong.

We totally did it wrong. Love my job so much we're going to do it again cuz that was 1,000% wrong. See that? Look what? I did we smashed that hose in there? It's okay. we learn to do one more time.

it's off. It's off center. Try right there. Nice.

No one can see again, but hey, it is what it is I'm reaching up with the nut rethreading it again. Got it? Okay, sorry dude, that was my oversight I didn't see it. Do it again. Everybody who is watching saw that except for us.

guaranteed. didn't see it on M Do you guys see it? comment down below. What did you see? Do you see what? I See All right, let's try the shake test again. Hey Rod can we do the honors? do that thing? A tug.

Solid. He's tugging but it's not going anywhere. Oh, that happens. Sweet! I Think this is a win.

Let's get the illuminators out from under the chassis. We're going to let her down and go on a finalized test drive to see if I cannot hear any other Creeks rattles, clicks, noises, bangs, pops or shimmies. Ready to go? Let her down Firebird Moving down, coming down Ferrari Bird: It's a Ferrara bird. more than you can afford pal.

Ferrari did you get get the other side I can't get the front one. Oh is it stuck? Yeah. went the wrong way. Oh Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Go forward the other rack that you were using. it goes backwards. but this one. this one goes forward.

There you go. You got it. You got it. Aon You want to ride with me? Want to ride? Hop in Homie! Let's get this thing restarted.

Hm. Why are there O2 sensors on the seat? All right. click H her ticket for safety. You got to move those.

uh O2 sensors there buddy I Don't know why they're there. Nobody told me. cool there. Any pedestrians behind us? No sir, no.

B I can see you. Hey So Laur we were looking around at the interior and we found out that it is incredibly nice and shiny. Wow that is. I that's not I hope that's not Armor All shiny because I understand that Armor All shiny is really bad for your dash Plastics even though they Market it for your dash Plastics the steering wheel that's also well lubricated I mean not the not the grip or anything but the this right here.

that's that's. pretty shiny. It looks like he sprayed it with silicone lubricant. everywhere it does I feel like chop L Some around, no, you're Sizzlin see you later.

Oh okay yeah, you're no no. your prime rib. Your prime rib. yeah you're not fet.

Filets are actually pretty good. You wrap them in bacon. Cut the AC off. Oh yeah yeah, that's are you You cold? but no I said cut it off.

Oh no, we don't need acuh yeah, it's hot in here, Is it? Detroit Boy thinks it's not cold or hot. It's hot in here. Give me my hook. Anyway, we're going to get around to that test drive eventually.

Give me my we'll be right back. See you later. Is anybody behind us? No, the horn doesn't work work I Can't do any honks for oh there's one honks for safety. There we go.

Backing out. Don't run into my trailer, hitch backing out. Oh you guys see that I'm certified YouTube Now Woohoo! All right, enough screwing around. Let's get out of here.

So Aaron What we're listening for is clunks, bangs and rattles and you saw the condition down below that was quite dilapidated. Yeah, it made some noise It it actually happened mostly on a downshift from a Dell when it would go into first out of second I was I went over the railroad tracks, didn't hear it, clun went everywhere, didn't hear it. Drove over the bridge and on the way down. clunk clunk clunk.

We didn't take the wheels off, did we? no? All right, here's the tracks. What do we get? Nope. just a convertible. Shake I Like yeah, it's a convertible thing.

they they tend to be radly, bouncy, shaky little creatures. Avoid I Used to get wind noise complaints at the dealership. people would buy like a Pontiac Solstice And they would say that when driving down the highway they heard loud whooing noises from outside of the car. Yep, another one that we got that's incredible people with a four-door SUVs The complaint was is when the back windows are cracked and inch or two on the highway they would hear a whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh sound that was rhythmic in nature and went away at slower speeds.

and they used to make us write those up and bring them in and test drive to recreate the condition and then tell them that that is normal normal. Now the fun part was is we had to drive at highway speed which was a 20-minute drive from the dealership so it would be an hour round trip to verify the customer's concern only to say that that's what happens when you roll your windows down on the highway so we didn't get paid. It was a big giant waste of time. typical bureaucracy dealership bureaucracy.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. We should be hearing some clunky noises. We're downshifting right now I Hear nothing? How about you? You hear it? Jackley Convertible top. Yeah, it's more like the convertible chassis.

like the whole things flipping flopping. Oh CAU Phone call and we're off. rounding the corner. this is the rough road section.

We might hear it around here. See all those divots? Nope. nothing I I Don't hear nothing I Hear not a I Think we're good to go on this one. Like I said earlier and like what we saw earlier there are some other suspension components back there that could use some uh some attention.

However, we found the culprit for the customer's complaint. So since we have address the customer's complaint then we may now proceed with the Uh. It's the quintessential upsell the Uh while I was in there I Guess what I'm trying to say is in this situation, a lot of stores will go oh sir, you need this, this, this, this, this, this, and this and they can turn what would have been a $300 job into a $1,200 job. Very very fast when they actually skipped over the customer's actual complaint and then addressed Everything at Once Uh, That's kind of a Middle Ground Road type of situation and it relies heavily on experience on when to be able to make those judgment calls.

But I prefer to address the customer's immediate concern first and then we can have another conversation about other items. That'll be my soap box of the day. Does that sound good to you? I Think that was very well put because a lot of times people will want to know uh, what, what, how much is this going to cost and we really can't tell you how much it's going to cost until we really look at the vehicle and and you have your concern. It's like let's focus on your main concern and then we'll unravel all these other extra little problems.

Yeah, we found Bushings back there on the control arms that are kind of torn, but they weren't causing the symptoms that were described, but they needed to be change. But I didn't need to change those and sell those just to fix the symptom because we don't know what kind of use this vehicle gets. Does it drive on? Sundays Does it drive every day? Is there car seats in the back? Is it a toy? Are we going to sell it? Did we just get it? Do we not have the money? There's a lot of reasons I do know it will not be driving in the snow. Nope, neither will I ha All right guys.

I Think we're good to go here. We're going to go ahead and close it up for the weekend. We have uh, other more leisurely activities to partake. And so that being said, I'm going to go ahe and close this video out right now.

I Will do such things as always by thanking each and every one of you guys for watching this video. Certainly hope you enjoyed this video. If in fact, you did enjoy this video, please feel free to let me. and A- Rod know in the comment section down below.

Do not forget to tap that like button while you're down there. and most importantly, head over to Powerstroke Tech talk with A-Rod and check out his channel where you can find A-Rod and myself and many others in our crew on his live stream every Wednesday 900 p.m. Eastern Standard Time See you guys there! Have a great day in video in Pontiac into transmission.