Yesterday I finished my strut project on my 94 V6 Camry. The history on it is that in the past 3 years the rear was ratteling as if there were blocks of wood in the trunk, and the front were banging on bumps and ratteling as if the front end would fall apart when driving down bad roads.
All the struts had lost their dampening after I removed them the pistons had very very poor resistance-the left front had no resistance at all. I could lift the piston let go and it would just drop into the strut. The rears had very notchy resistance they definatley needed to go. The front strut mounts were shedding rubberm but the rears looked very good and this surprised me since i thought that was what was making all the rattleing from the back. It turns out that it was the worn sway bar to frame mounting bushings that were worn allowing the sway bar to bang around inside the mounting brackets that secure it to the frame. So whenever I hit bumps the sway bar would bounced and vibrated inside the brackets essentially bouncing off the frame. Because the rear struts were worn the suspension would bottom out and the sway bar would hit the upper frame were the torsion/control arms attach, this would make a lound clank and then the sway bar would vibrate in the mounting bushings. This is why when you hit bumps the rattle keeps going for a few seconds and then stops if there are no more bumps. The whole process starts over once you hit more bumps.
I took the easy way out and cut the rear endlinks off with my dremel cut off wheel(30 seconds each side) then unscrewed the sway bar mounting bracket bolt that is closer to the front of the car and pryed down on the bracket to allow enough clearance to slide the bar out after prying the old bushings out with a small screwdriver. So now the source of the chronic rear rattle that so many camry owners report is Totally eliminated.
TEST DRIVE: the struts I used are Gabriel SVT road sensing. They were 269.00 delivered for all 4 got off ebay 6 months ago. Took the camry out on several different road types and speeds earlier today. First impression was WOW this thing rides VERY quiet now. NO rattle from the rear and NO rattles from the front, when I hit bumps now all I hear is the tire it is very very quiet and smooth. The shocks absorb the bumps comptetl, no harshness or stiffness just a very smooth ride, I like it a lot. I drove over several roads that used to make the suspension sound like it was falling apart and now it is very quiet, you wouldnt even hear me comming, whereas before it was actually embarrasing driving down some streets in my neighborhood with all the suspension rattleing.
Now I was curious as to how much removing the rear sway bar would affect the handeling. I felt absolutely NO difference in rear sway at all. I took it up on the highway and did several quick lane changes at normal (60MPH) and high speed 70-75 and it felt no different than before, in fact it is better because of the new struts. Needless to say I am not going throught the trouble of putting the rear sway bar back on. It does nothing for everyday normal driving in the city and highway and when it wears it is a horrible rattleing that develops. Most cars never had a rear sway bar anyway, the FRONT sway bar is the one that does all the work-I'd NEVER remove the front. But the rear on the camry's is so small it isnt even noticeable when you remove it.
Well I am very glad to have finally repaired this thing, I saved many hundreds of dollars doing it myself(probably over 1,000) and will keep this car for a lot longer now. I was fustrated with it last week and posted that I was going to sell it but not anymore!
with the state that your original struts were at, I'm surprised that you never caught any air when you hit big bumps on the highway
Linear Mode
