2011 XJL 5.0 w/ 74k miles

I recently replaced the banana control arms and upper control arms in the front. This made a huge difference in the noise I was experiencing but now that it has gotten colder, the noise has gotten worse to where it is not much better than before replacing those worn bushing/arms. I presume this is because it is a rubber part and the cold has affected it.

Everything is tight that I can see/feel. I inspected the rubber around the sway bars and it looks fine and everything else on the suspension looks good.

With the car off I can move the steering rack back and forth with the steering wheel and there is a bit of a 'clunk' with that. It does sound like the clunk is coming from the 'dash' area down low so I figured maybe it is steering column related? Any suggestions? Thanks for your help!

 

Sway bar bushings and sway bar end links. Fairly cheap and they are wear items. Bushings are tough because of access. The end links are simple. Now I have to be careful because you did not post where your from and if the car is in a salt area as you know all the suspension stuff will be well rusted and probably need to be torched off the car.

Also check the rubber mounts for the steering rack when moving the wheel back and forth. Not as common but still reported.

The top strut mounts are another suspect but that usually has a metallic sound and you would swear it was coming from the dash area inside the car.
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I am in Arkansas and it has essentially 0 rust on it at all.

The end links looked good and so do the bushings on the sway bar but should I replace them anyways just due to age?

 

I am in Dallas so no salty roads. For the top strut mounts, how can I diagnosis these? It does seem the noise is more on the left (drivers side) than the right. *note I have similar issue as original poster.

 

You can just unhook the sway bar ends links temporarily and then go drive the car. Hopefully over the same spots that you heard the noise. The parts are cheap and the end links are easy to change while the bushings are not.

One thing we see consistently on the top strut mounts is the foam around the strut starts to deteriorate and if left for a long time the shaft will not be centered in the mount anymore. Of course sometimes they look OK so it's not 100%. Something cheap and easy to check. But your noise does sound different than what normally occurs.

Here is a long and detailed thread on upper strut mounts with some great pictures from XJsss.
Might be worth a look.
Top Strut Mount Noise
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