Finally, something got fixed with minimal effort and stress! I spent some time yesterday trying to investigate the clunking noise I heard coming from the front passenger side. I figured it had to be something with the wheel, wheel bearing, or the front suspension set up.
To start, I jacked up the side, and spun the tire. It rotated freely and smoothly, no grinding, no resistance. Hmmm, ok, so I don’t think its the wheel bearings, and its not a loose cable or anything. I spent some more time underneath just trying to figure out where everything goes. I couldn’t find anything that wrong – tires seem well connected, tie rods, center pin, other bolts that I don’t know the name of yet, everything seemed to generally look ok. So whatever, now I’m thinking I might need to replace the whole suspension. While this is something I definitely want to do at some point, I really don’t want to cough up that kind of cash before even driving this thing on the street. This is an example of what I want to get, upgraded w/ sweet (and safe) disc brakes, but man its pricey! So instead, I spent the night searching the forums on what might be causing this clunking issue.
Tonight, I tried one of the suggestions online. I didn’t think this would work, but I lifted the bus back up, and checked the tire lug nuts. Sure enough, they were all very loose! I tightened them all down, checked the other wheels, started up the bus, and backed straight out of the garage. I then pulled straight back into the garage (after shifting too hard and lunging forward like a crazy person). No noise from the tire – Success! I’m going to keep working on the parking brake, and will hopefully try test drive #2 again this weekend. Looking forward to it!
