Alum Front Susp, any known problems??

[Thomas C Potter]

Now that the new for '03 front suspension has been around for a year, any known problems?? Cracking?? Hardware loosening?? Inability to attain proper alignment?? ((We are all aware of tire wear and wheel adaptors.))

TP

[drobin]

My MM-A has over 10K and was 1 yr. old on July 03. Tires are wearing perfectly, no front end noises, always keep 35 psi inflation pressure, swap every 5K and never had any problems.

drobin

[Fourth Horseman]

My front right suspension broke pretty quickly in my wreck. I don't know exactly what happened up front there, but it seems that the force of the car being shoved sideways is what did it in. For a car this heavy it seems that the suspension could have been a bit beefier. I could have driven my car home after the wreck had it not been for the suspension giving up.

[Dr Caleb]

Aluminum is one of the metals that has a tedency break rather than bend. It is extremely strong and light, making it really good for what it does in our cars, but it has no sense of ha-ha. :)

[Zack]

I do believe Mr. Reinhart has new lower front control arms in production as we speak. He can fill us in better on this?

[John F. Russo]

I worked on an R & D conract on stress corrosion of high strength aluminum alloys in the late 60's. I was an assistant to two doctoral degreed project leaders- one in metallurgy (Fulbright Scholar, not related to president Clinton) and one in electrochemistry. The basic principle is that corrosion is accelerated when the part is stressed in the presence of road or sea salt, in the case of my work that was related to airplanes.

As soon as I found out that the MM's control arm was made of an aluminum alloy, I became concerned. I live in a salt environment during the winter and have had the car since early March and have had minimal salt exposure so far.

I am considering painting the control arm and more frequent undercarriage car washing.

Any ideas whether to consider a Rusty Jones or other method?

____________
2003 Blue 300B (Canadian) (traction control, mini spare, trunked 6 disc
CD changer,clock-in-the-radio, heated front seats, hood light)
Born 12/10/02
10,000 miles
Stock transmission (upgraded with Performance Automatic
clutches and band after stock tranny failed in 8,800 miles)
Wheel locks (Ford)
Mileage: 18 mpg at a steady speed of 80 mph
Kenny Brown: 6th “signature series” conversion (450 hp) 3/28/03
Dead pedal
Badgeless front grill (trying to achieve)
Baer front brakes 14 in. two piston, vented rotors
MMX Driveshaft
4.10 gears
Vortech supercharger (7 to 8 psig boost)
Pirelli P-Zero Asymmetric
FordChip
One coil of each front stock spring removed to produce
the “same” effect as an Eibach spring
Ground clearance: 5 in.

[RCSignals]

John F. Russo
Simply spraying the aluminum with WD40 will help protect it

[merc406]

Two Guy's Garage had Dave install an Anti-Corrsion device on one of his cars. It bolts to the body and battery and electrostaticly protects the car from corrsion. Company name is CPR and phone number is 877-363-7878.
Or go to----twoguysgarage.com-------

[RCSignals]

The Marauder isn't the first, nor is it the only car to have aluminum front suspension parts.

I really don't think there is anything to get worried about

[mtnh]

I don't know how this crosses into the MM suspension, but the Lincoln LS has similar front end componentry materials, and over the past week, I had discovered an nasty screech/squeak noise when manuevering in the parking lots. It turned out to be lower ball joint, left side, and the both of them had water emanating from the dust boots in the middle sections, not the ends, indicating that the boots are apparently leaking in their flexible areas, areas that appear to wind up when the ball joint turns with the steering movement. I confirmed this by adding a grease fitting and filling it with a few pumps of grease and the noise stopped. However, the wear on this item must be bad, if the noise of the friction was any indication. How does this cross into the MM? Okay here is how: The part that holds the ball joint is some aluminum alloy that forms the steering knuckle, and it contains a non-replacable ball joint, so, the entire front hub and brake and steering and sway bar must all be removed to replace this $150 part (left side, $200+ for the right side) just to change 2 ball joints. The MM may also have the same design, so keep an eye on the rubber boots on the ball joints and look for signs of moisture. If you are lucky, you may find them before your warranty expires, unlike me, who has 53.5 k miles and the warranty expired at 50K.

That aside, the aluminum suspension components look to be in great shape, and I also live in the salt belt, just up the road around 35 miles from Mr. Russo.

Mike

[MitchB]

In the case of aircraft, your study probably related to the aluminum skin and underlying support structures which form surface stress fractures with age. You cannot directly link your findings to the suspension componants which are subjected to different stresses. These structures should putlast the life of your vehicle without any special attention.

Mitch

I worked on an R & D conract on stress corrosion of high strength aluminum alloys in the late 60's. I was an assistant to two doctoral degreed project leaders- one in metallurgy (Fulbright Scholar, not related to president Clinton) and one in electrochemistry. The basic principle is that corrosion is accelerated when the part is stressed in the presence of road or sea salt, in the case of my work that was related to airplanes.

As soon as I found out that the MM's control arm was made of an aluminum alloy, I became concerned. I live in a salt environment during the winter and have had the car since early March and have had minimal salt exposure so far.

I am considering painting the control arm and more frequent undercarriage car washing.

Any ideas whether to consider a Rusty Jones or other method?

[John F. Russo]

WD 40 is okay for awhile. But I hate to have to get under the car and spray that stuff at whatever frequency that I have to.

The electrical protection sounds interesting, but It doesn 't fit with what I know about cathodic protection methods. This method uses a sacrifical metal that corrodes instead of the aluminum. (What are the two guys using for this? I'll call them). This method has been used for many decades in the industry, but I never heard of it being used on aiplance wings. Of course, I'm presuming that any MM control arm corrosion will be similar to the corrosion of an airplane wing that is exposed to salt air and stresses.

If Ford has been using aluminum in the undercarrriage in other cars, to whom I can talk to at Ford to see what data they have on old cars driven in the Northeast.

[RCSignals]

It's not just Ford that has been using aluminum in the undercarriages of cars.

John, you probably posted this before, but you are located in MA, and have a "Canadian" version Marauder?

[SergntMac]

This thread make me think about something alignment related, but I don't want to hi-jack the thread. Mayble I'll start another thread.

[Dennis Reinhart]

I talked to Steve about this at Ennis I feel this may be the cause, with all the alignment issues for example I have had Keith's car realigned 4 times, and I have found the tow in to gradually go out of spec, this is noticeable by the steering wheel being off center, this is real hard to figure how this happens for this adjustment is controlled by the rack and pinion not the lower control arms which is caster and camber. This adjustment and the alignment issues may be caused by the alluminum subframe stretching or shifting the subframe came out in 03

[SergntMac]

Like I said a while ago, but nobody wanted to hear me...

Maybe it's time to look at frame alignment?

Just a belated thought...

[merc]

SergntMac you are right again and I hear you 10x10. I have been having weird door chaffing problems. It seems that my drivers side door is flexing so much that it is making contact with the roofs edge. Leaving about a 1.5 inch line of raw metal were the door and roof edges meet. I also have similar problems on the lower interior side of the same door. I will be taking pictures of the damage and creating a new tread concerning this issue.

[deerejoe]

I came out of a movie theater yesterday and while walking to my car looking at the front end, noticed the front wheels were NOT parallel to one another, nor did they appear to be positioned the same in the wheel wells!!

The left front was definitely turned out in relation to the right front.
I may be a bit over the hill, age wise, but I'm NOT blind...the car was level and the steering wheel was on the money.

Guess I had better be giving my front end some alignment attention real soon.

[studio460]

Sort of a related post . . . My front-end squeaks. Sometimes it's there; sometimes not (never there when I take it to the dealer of course). When it's there, you can push the front end up and down and easily make it squeak. Lube job didn't fix it. There was a post here somewhere on a possible fix . . . I think it went something like this: loosen aluminum crossmember bolts, shake car, retorque (forget what ft-lb. was spec'd in the post). Haven't gotten around to trying this.

[RCSignals]

my CVPI had a squeek in the front end, only when driving very slow, braking, or driving over a bump. It wasn't the front cross member, but some kind of pad at a mounting point near the drivers side firewall that needed to be repositioned.
You might have the dealer look into that NBC.

[studio460]

Thanks for your input, RC! I've tried my service department, and they've been unable to properly diagnose the problem. Hopefully some the posts in this thread can point them in the right direction.

[Marauderman]

Originally posted by deerejoe
I came out of a movie theater yesterday and while walking to my car looking at the front end, noticed the front wheels were NOT parallel to one another, nor did they appear to be positioned the same in the wheel wells!!

The left front was definitely turned out in relation to the right front.
I may be a bit over the hill, age wise, but I'm NOT blind...the car was level and the steering wheel was on the money.

Guess I had better be giving my front end some alignment attention real soon.

I noticed this same condition after my "fix" from wreck back in May.....and pointed this out and after having it checked --it was not a problem --tires wear ok and have not had any problems so far..they still look odd though --service guys says it's cause of the large suspension and tires/wheels.....in any event--although odd , they have yet to cause me any alignment problem..go figure....Tom

[Pantherman]

Dennis,
If you have a Marauder with shifting alignment, the likely problem source is low clamp load at the front lower control arm bolt. The very thick aluminum crossmember structure requires a lot of force to collapse it enough to prevent the arm from sliding laterally in the camber adjustment slot. Even a small movement will significantly change toe and clear vision. If your alignment guy is tightening this joint by feel or using the pre-2003 torque, the arm will slip. According to my CD, the proper torque is 225Nm or 166 ft-lb. Use a LONG breaker bar.

[TripleTransAm]

Originally posted by NBC Shooter
Sort of a related post . . . My front-end squeaks.



I had a groaning/creaking sound come from up front on braking, even at very slow speeds in a parking lot (anytime the nose got a chance to bounce). Ended up being some control arm bolts that were not very tight at all.

But there was one other groan/squeak that just drove me mad. Crappy thing is that I could never reproduce it with the hood up. That's when I narrowed in on the hood latch area... seems that when the car is hot hot hot, the hood will move side-to-side and something rubs metal-to-metal. I cured this by applying a metric crap-load of thick grease to the hood latch mechanism, as I was beginning to see some surfaces that were shiny due to metal-on-metal friction.

[John F. Russo]

RCSignals
"John, you probably posted this before, but you are located in MA, and have a "Canadian" version Marauder?"

The label on my driver's door says, "Made in Canada"

[MM03MOK]

All Marauders are made in Canada (St. Thomas Assembly Plant). One obvious difference between the car made for the Canadian market is the speedometer has the kilometres per hour on the outer edge, instead of the mph. I think that's what RC means by "Canadian" version.

[RCSignals]

Bunny is, as always, right

[Warpath]

Pantherman is right. If the bolts are not torqued to the proper spec, things will slip and alignment will change. If the mechanic just used an inpact gun, its likely not torqued properly.

John F. Russo - Personally, I think you are over-reacting. Aluminum is used throughout the auto industry with no problems. In fact, I recently looked under the latest Nissan sedan (I think) and practically everything was aluminum - control arms, crossmembers, knuckles, etc front and rear. There is no need to try to prevent the corrosion. The only stress corrosion I have experienced is with fasteners (steel) which were too hard.

[sailsmen]

Aluminum is extensively used in the marine industry in corrosive conditions due in part to its corrosive resistant properties.

[studio460]

Thanks for the tips on the squeaks, Triple-T. As always, your informative posts are much appreciated. Going to crawl under the car now and check the hood . . .

[studio460]

AHA!!!!!!!!!!!! Triple-T, it WAS the %#$&#!$@# HOOD LATCH!!!!!!!!!!! That "eee-eee-eee-eee" squeak has been driving me f#####g CRAZY for the last few months! I didn't have a metric ton of any kind of grease, so I just unscrewed the hood bumpers about four revolutions to tighten the tension on the catch. I OWE you, man! You are a friggin' genius! THANKS!!!

[TripleTransAm]

Glad to have helped... that's what this site's all about.

In my case, the hood bumper adjustment didn't seem to help the issue completely, especially when it got really hot. But if that's all it took in your case, then :up: