Heres my problem, while driving my 87 Turbo T, whenever i encounter bumps (backing out of the driveway, speedbumps, etc...) a loud groaning squeak noise is produced from the front end. I can tell by the way the car handles that I need new bushings for the front and rear, but do I need to replace both body and suspension bushings or just one or the other? Also, I really don't want to do polyurethane because of the hard ride and squeaking noises. Whats the best solution? Thanks to all for your input.
Try this first just for kicks. Under the hood you will find a rubber bumper located on the firewall right in the center that makes contact with the hood when closed. Put a small amount of grease on it.
I've tried that already, having had it be a problem during colder weather before and it didn't fix the problem. The noise definitely seems to be coming from the front suspension area. I also noticed that when I jack my cars front end up and let it back down the same noise appears, a little bit at a time on the way up, and the same as going over a bump in the road on the way down. Is this a sign of suspension bushings needing to be replaced? Thanks.
Have you looked at your passenger side rear bushing? The one by the downpipe. Mine only had about 1/4 of it left, I'd get a bad clunk noise on bumps. I installed a PST PolyGraphite kit in my car and I don't think it has a hard ride and I've never heard a squeak out of it. It seems to handle quite a bit better too. As far as the bushings go, the only body bushings in the front are with the radiator core support. I'm sure they could use replacing but they'd be fun to get at with the car together. I happened to have mine all apart and replaced them. You could take a look at everything and see which bushings are in need of replacing if money is tight but I'd just do it all at once. Another thing you could check is the shocks. I had a Chevelle that when you jacked it up and set it back down it had one ride height, if you pushed the front end down, it wouldn't come all the way back up and got another ride height. It turns out that many years ago, after my dad had replaced them, he went over a set of railroad tracks and one of them popped out on the bottom. He said it looked okay and just bolted it back in. After I got it out I could see it was bent. Good luck
Thanks for your help, I'm thinking I'm just gonna do all the bushings at once here and be done with it. With 150K on the car, I'm sure they could all use a replacement by now, if they haven't already.