A couple of weeks ago my wife and I took the vette out to Fall Creek Falls Tn to see the falls. It was on August 15th and hotter than blazes that day. Along the way I kept hearing something popping in the suspension. I kept it to myself because I did not want to stir the wife up and get her worried. It was about 160 miles round trip. On the way back we decided to stop for ice cream and to cool off some. When we were backing up the car made a loud bang noise. My wife says "What was that!!!"Well today I get out in the garage and jack the car up and take the wheels off to investigate. I hit every nut and bolt I can see under the car. Then I get the bolts holding the caliper on the drivers side. When I put some torque on it the upper a-arm moves about a half inch.I jump up and look in the engine bay and see that I have lost all of the shims. No wonder the car was making a popping noise. I have a vette brakes spreader bar and the car drove a straight line all the time and did nothing funny while driving. I ran down to Autozone and picked up some shims to get me through till I can get to the alignment shop this week. Here is what I found when I looked at the upper control arm.

Control arm pic


(fixed link)Adams' Apple2007-09-03 18:48:53

Wow, that sure would make the noise.  I have to admit I am very suprised it drove okay.   Check and make sure the bolts and nuts on the upper control arm are okay.  There is either a problem there, or they were not tight enough to begin with.    The only other possibility is the shims rusted, cracked, and fell out, but that is unlikely.

It still has the compression type stock nuts on the a-arms. I am guessing they have worn over the years and are not holding like they used to. I may add lock washers or nyloc nuts. Did you look at the pics.

For some reason I cannot make a hyperlink on this webpage.

Yeppers, that'll make a noise all right!
I'd guess the nuts were not properly tightened after the "spreader bar" was installed. You may want to check those things every once and a while after the alignment, just to make sure they are still tight. I've seen shims fall out all the time from the nuts not being properly torqued. With the added bar, you may want to put a bit of lock-tite on the threads for extra insurance. I wouldn't go with a lock-washer, tho. The original nuts were of the locking type, but they are sorta tri-angular shaped, thread-wise, and are slightly crimped on the ends. Nylock nuts would be ok, but I would get a new set of the original style nuts. That's just me...

I fixed your pic link for ya, too.

Just got off the phone with the alignment shop, they are going to look at it at noon today. So, I go out there to move the car outside so I can clean it up before taking it up there and the battery is dead.  It should build a good enough charge on the battery charger before 11 o'clock. I should be good.  Eddie 702007-09-04 06:32:31

Everything turned out nice. The guy fixed me up and sent me on my way. It had been a couple of years since I had it aligned. He said I got it close by adding shims to it myself before driving it. He added a few shims and it drives nice and straight now. It drives so well that it made me want to run it through the gears a few times. Great ride home. The big plus in my book was the guy only charged $20 after this amount of time. 

Can't beat that price.  

I am thinking of going to ACE Hardware and picking up some nyloc nuts and using them. That is what Vette Brakes puts in their a-arm kits. If it works their a-arms, I would think it would work on stock a-arms. 

Hi, Flandy here, I toatally agree with Ken.  Lockwashers are junk, the American manufactures actually quite using them in 1970.  A good choice would be med. strenth loctite 243, or a prevailing torque lock nut.  Nylon lock nuts are are grade 2-grade 5 at best, they are very low carbon steel, and a grade 8 will tear their threads out at recommended torque specs and the problem will reappear.  Any questions, give me a pm-ggod luck-Phil

I put Nyloc nuts on there earlier today. I haven't drove it any yet but they did tighten down nice and tight so I think I should be good. If I notice any change I will try something different for sure. I did find something similar to stock at ACE while I was roaming through thier stuff. Looked just like the stuff I was taking off.