i know what you mean...
Banging can be 1 of 2 things or a combination of both-- ball joints or sway bar bushings. To check the ball joints, jack one front corner of the car up. Take a pry bar or 2x4 or anything of a "lever" type nature and lift the wheel up. If you have any play, you'll know it. I read that somewhere in this forum. Grabbing the top and bottom portion of the wheel and and doing the "push/pull" action won't work. Use a lever. What I did was take the wheel off so that I could visually inspect everything. I took the knuckle off thinking I needed to change a wheel bearing. Once the knuckle was off, I was able to better inspect things. To my surprise, I was able to grab the ball joint and actually shake it in and out about 1/8th to 1/4 inch! I also noticed that the inside of the tire was wearing down. I checked the other side and had the same problem. Here's what sucks. You can't buy just the ball joint. The ball joint and knuckle are engineered together and cost about 220 bucks. I think another symptom of this problem that go along with the wearing of the inside part of the tire is a "woo-ing" sound. "Woo-woo-woo-woo" if you will. I take that to be the wheels crying in agony due to the off-camber sitting of the wheel because of the ball joint.
Now, I feel for you if the problem is the sway bar bushing. Major pain to tackle if you do that type stuff yourself. Ford re-engineered the part so that you can't, again, buy just the sway bar bushings. You must purchase the entire sway bar with bushings attatched. I spent $160 at the local Lucifer. You can get them online for about $115 shipped.
I changed the sway bar about 9 months ago-- right after I bought the car. There are good instructions on this site. I need to change both knuckles right now. Oh, and the clock spring, too, because the ABS light keeps coming on. Just had another baby, so I went and scored a mint 2000 Navigator for $12,000. I'm trying to decide if I want to keep the LS and fix her current ailments (she has so many) or sell it and use my trusty old Eclipse.
There's something nice about looking out the front door and seeing 2 lincolns.
I just hope Ford did a better job with the Navi than it did with the LS. Shows how much research i did. Good luck to you. Yep, this car has a good long list of things that are "scheduled" to go wrong with it and they are all documented on this forum.
