Quote:
Originally Posted by i325  how would I check the ball joint? |
Ben covered it pretty well, but to add...
The balljoints are at the outer ends of the upper and lower control arms. They look like bushings while they're installed. They are, however, balljoints, which means they pivot. Picture it like this...
A---O---B
The ball is in the middle. When A goes up, B will go down. When A comes towards you, B will go away from you. If the ball joint is worn or broken, you'll get either excessive freeplay, or you'll get a situation where A goes up and B goes up too. Either scenario isn't normal.
The suspension won't allow for tons of movement in an direction, so it may be hard to spot changes, but you can use some ratchet extensions of something to gently pry on things and poke around. Be very careful of the rubber boots on those things, they're pretty thin. You can disconnect the upper control arm to play around with it by hand. Do NOT disconnect the lower control arm. That one has an eccentric bolt that sets the camber of the wheel, disturbing it will alter the camber.
EDIT: It did just occur to me that you have an earlier E36, and therefore you may have a balljoint on the UCA and a bushing on the LCA. Take a look and see...if they look different, they are.
That being said, pull the carpet back from inside the trunk and concentrate on the shock tower(s). This is the most likely source of your problem. Pull the mount off completely again and check both the top and the underside of the metal very carefully.