This is a simple and significant enough inexpensive fix that I felt it deserved its own thread in addition to being documented deep in my "Adventures with our 2001 carnival red convertible XKR" thread, which serves as a historical log for many of the things I do on and with our XKR.

BLUF: Renewing expired anti-roll bar bushings and end links fixed a very noisy and loose sounding suspension.

Over the past few months, the suspension on my XKR has been sounding increasingly noisy and rattly. It didn't feel loose, the front upper strut mounts looked fine, and I wasn't seeing unusual tire wear. But it sounded just awful, with a loud resonating rattle that made it sound like the front end was going to fall off whenever I hit a pothole.

I began researching new suspension bushings and what the latest thinking was on the best upper front strut mounts in preparation for taking the car off the road and ripping the entire suspension apart to renew everything. I've done this on other vehicles before, if I was going to do this, I'd be renewing all the bushings in one shot.

I was taking care of some other maintenance items and found myself deep in the intake side of the engine, with the air filter box off, renewing the alternator.



I happened to grab the anti-roll bar that runs under there and it was extremely loose. Could it just be expired anti-roll bar bushings and end links that are the problem? These would be easy to renew without taking the whole suspension apart. I got online and ordered 24MM front & 17mm rear anti-roll bar bushings and end links that totaled about $100.



The red rear bushings and end links were dead simple and jumped right in. As an experiment, I upgraded to aftermarket greaseable 17mm prothane bushings and brackets, designed for Subarus. They fit perfect.

The two front endlinks and the blue polyurethane front bushing on the right side were trivial to do as well.

The front bushing on the coolant reservoir side was another matter. Access was so constrained that, while removing the silver front bracket bolt (yellow arrow) would be easy, I knew it would be next to impossible for me to fit it back on straight with the new bushing in place..



Our go-to move when working on the front ends of the SIII XJ6's and MkIIs we used to drive and race was "Drop the front subframe." If I was going to do that and be underneath the vehicle, I wanted a second line of protection in addition to the floor jack. So I disconnected the bonnet gas struts, place & bolted the bonnet in service position, then fitted the stout red engine support bar and hung a 4' LED shop light off the top of the bonnet to illuminate the work area.



I next loosened, but didn't totally remove, the rearward front subframe bolt on that side (yellow arrow).



Then I also loosened, but didn't totally remove, the frontmost left subframe bolt (green arrow) and carefully lowered the left side of the engine & subframe assembly a bit with both the floor jack and engine support bar until I could easily access the front bolt of the bushing bracket (yellow arrow) to fit it back on straight without crossthreading it.




As they say, reassembly is the reverse of disassemble. Because I didn't totally remove the two left subframe bolts, I didn't need to wrestle with the subframe and engine to realign them to their original position.

Once reassembled and back on the road, I was very pleased.

All the noises and rattles were gone and it felt like I was once again driving a tight sports car again instead of a falling-apart jalopy

 

Nice one. It is amazing just now much noise you can get from the drop links going bad.

 

I replaced my front sway bar bushings this spring. I managed to get the restricted access one off and back on by removing the front bolt from the top, going straight down with a very long socket extension, and loosening the rear one a bit, from the wheel well after removing the wheel, and then rotating it around. I removed the bushing, slid the new one on, and reversed the process for refitting the bolts. It was a bit of a struggle to get the front bolt in straight but I managed. The whole process took a half hour.

I think different cars have different levels of access to that bushing. I was lucky, I guess.

Bill

 

Same on my RHD 2001 XKR. It was fiddly, but doable.