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My wife’s car is a 2001 Honda Accord sedan, LX trim, automatic with about 125K miles. Last year there was some heavy construction in the neighborhood and she ran over a deep pothole with the left rear wheel. Ever since then, there has been a creaking sound coming from the left rear suspension when driving over bumps. Nothing too loud, just annoying.
I can reproduce the sound with the engine off by pushing down on the left rear part of the car (trunk), which made it easy to determine the source of the creaking sound. I attached a pic.
When I wiggle left/right on the rear stabilizer bar, the top part of the link creaks. I’ve tried to lube it up with some silicone spray, but it didn’t help.
Before I go and buy the part, does anyone know if replacing this part will get rid of the creak? I assumed there would be bushings, but from what I can tell by feel and pictures I’ve seen at online stores, there aren’t any. Seems odd there would be metal-to-metal contact.
I think this is the correct part, and I plan to order new nuts (10mm).
http://www.hondapartscheap.com/oem-part/honda/accord-sedan-parts/2001/lx-side-srs/4-speed-automatic/chassis/rear-lower-arm/link-l-rr-stabilizer/52325-s84-a01Thanks!
Jimmy
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disconnect the link then move/wiggle the upper and lower arms independently, this will determine whether the drop link is at fault.
Thanks for the replies. The bolts and nuts are really rusted due to 10 upstate NY winters. I’m soaking them in some penetrating oil before trying to get them undone this weekend. I’ll report back when I find out anything.
I bought a breaker bar and got the nuts loose, or so I thought. All I ended up loosening was the nut from the stabilizer bar – the nut itself kept on turning and turning. I think the creaking noise was the “bolt” (the threads on the link) breaking off the link. This coincides with when my wife first started hearing this noise, which was immediately after driving over a bad pothole.
I’m going to try to whack the link off with a hammer, and if that doesn’t dislodge it, get some pickle forks – unless anyone has any better suggestions on how to remove this.
OK, when you look face on to the nuts you may see the thread is hollow to allow and allen or torx bit inside to hold it while you unwind the nut. Other method, if you look at the joint side of the link there may be flats to allow a spanner to hold the threaded part while you unwind the nut.
Just noticed Collegeman beat me to it 😆
I knocked off the bottom part of the link with a hammer, exposing a hard plastic ball joint. Now I see why it was spinning in the first place (duh ball joint 😛 ).
Ripping apart the rubber seal on the other side of the nut exposed some metal but unfortunately did not have any flats. I still managed to get some vice-grip pliers to grab it tight enough to get the bottom nut unscrewed! :cheer:
I think “OK, now just need to repeat this process on the top nut!” Unfortunately due to how the top nut was situated, I could not get the vice-grips to grab hard enough to turn the other nut. I must have stared at it for 60 minutes trying to think of a different way to get that top nut off, and came to the realization that I need to either 1) buy a 14mm box wrench (a big one at that) and hope to knock that nut loose, or 2) bring the car to a mechanic. I can’t see how I can get enough leverage with that tiny 4mm hex to break the nut off. The wife is leaning towards #2, but I want to give #1 a try.
Opinions?
My wife also thinks I have “destroyed her car” and it is now unsafe to drive sans one stabilizer link. I think we’re fine as long as we don’t do any hard cornering, but she doesn’t believe me. Can anyone confirm? She’ll listen to you guys!
Thanks,
JimmyJust wanted to close out this thread.
I bought a box wrench/ratchet set but couldn’t get enough leverage with the 4mm hex to break the nut loose, and the hex hole is now stripped.
My next attempt was to knock off the link, dremel off the ball joint plastic hub and try to grab the other end with some vice grips. Unfortunately the ball joint just ended up crumbling.
The frustrating part was the replacement from Autozone had flats on the opposite end of the nut for a spanner wrench, and I knew I could have got the new part installed within 10 minutes. We’ll be headed to a shop to have them remove this tomorrow.
I appreciate all the advice, and all in all I did end up learning quite a bit.
A torch is your friend here. Those stabilizer links make noise similar to what you describe quite often. It’s also common for them to give you trouble taking them off. Here’s a video that I did on the process for both the front and back of my Element. The process should be very similar for your vehicle.
Wow, a response from The Legend himself! I feel honored! :cheer: Thank you Eric.
You know, I swear I watched every video you have posted on YouTube, but some of those views were late at night so may not have retained all your wisdom in my half-conscious state. As soon as I saw that front stabilizer link I thought “THOSE THINGS!” 🙂 I proceeded to laugh when you said “seemingly easy, but deceptively hard”, and “if you don’t have heat, and if you don’t have air tools, this may not be a job you can do.”
Well, I didn’t have heat or air tools, but I DID manage to get one of the nuts off with a 18″ breaker + vice grips. My wife didn’t give me permission to get heat next to her car (she feels it’s dangerous so close to the gas tank). I wonder if I would have had better luck with an impact… don’t own one but would have invested in a cordless one if it would have taken it off.
I will remember this for the rest of my life:
“Looks deceptively easy.”
– ETCG on stabilizer linksThanks Eric! I also wanted to say I went from someone who knew nothing about car repair (well car audio a bit, but that’s different) to someone that’s looking for car problems, just so I can wrench for the experience, all thanks to you.
I had a local shop knock off that troublesome nut – he didn’t even want to charge me but I insisted on paying him $20 for his trouble. Just needed an impact wrench on it for about 10 seconds.
Got the car home and installed the new link. Feels great! 😛
Thanks again for everyone’s help.
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