well I replaced both lower ball joints. They were worn out. Still had clunk. Replaced both lower strut brushing. They were flexing but I don't think were worn out. Still had clunk. The sway bar links were rusty but tight. I had to find this clunk. So I disconnected one of the sway bar links front the lower a arm and when I was pulling it out of the a arm I heard that annoying clunk. Turns out that the noise was coming from the sway bar bushings. My local auto parts supplyer didn't show a listing for my jag or the LS but thinking back to some of the threads I have read I remember reading that even the explorers share some pieces so I got my parts guy to pull the sway bar bushings for the 2000 explorer. I took them out to the parking lot crawled under my car and they looked like a match. So at $24 for the pair I figured it was worth the risk. I also picked up a pair of links ( had to use 2000 LS because jag wouldn't come up on there computer but Lincoln LS did and yes they are the same part. Put my car up on my ramps I got busy.the left one came out easy. Matching the parts up revieled that the shaft size and thicknes and width over all was correct but the width of the strap ring grove was a little narrow. But for $24 what the hell. It was a bit of a struggle to get the first screw started but after that the left side was a walk in the park. The right side on the other hand was a little more involved the DCCV and its mounting bracket are in the way. I wound up pulling off the front bumper lower shield rusted cage nuts fun fun. I also removed the DCCV from it's mounting bracket so i could remove the mounting bracket. Once that was done I swaped out the worn bushing for the new slightly strappy one. Painted my new links installed them over hauled my lower shield (replaced rusted cage nuts) assembled every thing coated every thing with rust proofer grease. Took my car for a test drive and she drove smooth as silk. Even at 11:30 at night and tired from three hours of crawling under her I went for a good hour cruze. Happy happy no more clunk

 

Congrats!

Good to know about the Explorer parts as well. Thanks for sharing!

 

I hope you had a cold one when you got back. Well done!

 

Kudos for staying with it and eventually coming up with an inexpensive solution. I hope other owners of the older S-Types with clunking front ends will see this thread and benefit from it....

 

these are the times that keep us coming back for more... just like when you nail that good shot in golf

 

Thanks all

 

Fantastic! You did an excellent job in solving that clunck sound, now I know what to suspect

 

These clunks can be a nightmare to track down. I have had a clunk in my car for about the last three years. It's source was really ill-defined, sounding like it could have been coming from either front or back. The only thing I was absolutely certain of was that it was coming from the driver's (right hand in Australia) side. Circumstances for the last few years have prevented me from devoting much time to working on cars, but I did jack it up, both sides and front and back, and worked all of the joints with a length of hardwood. Nothing stood out as the source of the clunk so I more or less stopped driving the car until I had a chance to have a good look at it.

The noise finally got on my nerves sufficiently that I decided to at least have a bit of a go at tracking it down. The car has done 305,000km so, even though they still looked perfect, I decided to swap out the front stabilizer bushes. Driver's side one changed, no difference except I had less skin on my hands. So I thought, even though the clunk is definitely not coming from the passenger's side, I would swap the second bush so that both sides match. The left hand side is much easier to get to, so I lost less skin, and the bush itself was still in excellent condition. I can't believe how long these bushes last!

HOWEVER, while I was changing the left-hand bush, I needed a bit more room, so I put a jack under the outboard end of the front lower arm and lifted it up an inch or so, and there it was - the bolt on the bottom end of the stabilizer link was loose. So, the actual repair took all of 15 seconds to effect and the source of the clunk was as far as it could have been from where I thought it was.

I was totally convinced that clunk was coming from the driver's side. I had even resorted to chasing corrugations and potholes and these seemed to definitively indicate that side. Just goes to show, structure-borne noise (and deafness in one ear) can be very misleading!!!!!