So I recently ran into the mysterious "front-end clunk" everyone seems to be plagued with, but I think I fixed it.

The noise began Thursday when I pulled out of a parking lot with a good-size dip between it and the road. I heard a "crunch" then a "pop". After that, I kept hearing the pop sound when I would take a corner at more than 10 mph or if the corner had a bump or rise in it. I got under the truck and looked around, but didn't see anything. Then I did a search on XOC about this, and came up with anything from greasing the steering stops to replacing shocks to replacing crushed sway bar bushings.

Greasing the steering stops had no affect (really, is this actually supposed to work? I don't understand the concept). In fact, as I drove around today, the noise seemed to become more frequent.

So I climbed under the X this evening determined to figure out what the problem was. I checked the shocks - they seemed fine. I took a look at the sway bar bushings - they seemed a bit worn, but didn't seem to be causing any sort of metal to metal contact. I had noticed when I changed my oil last week that I had sheared off about half the head of one of the sway bar bolts. I figured while I was under there, I'd take it out and replace it with one of the rear sway bar bolts I wasn't using. I also put my socket on the top bolt of that assembly and gave it a few turns - the wrong way. I then tightened that back up, and it seemed that I turned the bolt more times tightening than I did loosening, so I'm thinking those bolts may have been loose.

After I tightened all the sway bar bolts, I took the X for a drive around the neighborhood before I put the skid plate on. No noise. I came back and banged around on the skid plate (I have a pretty large dent in it that could use some straightening) and installed the plate. Drove it around again - still no noise.

So I guess it's fixed. I'll drive around a few days, then check the bolts again.

Why did I post this long-ass message? Well, hopefully if others are having this problem, this helps. If others have successfully fixed this problem, they can give other insight. And if someone reads this and sees error in what I have done, they can correct me before I drive around too much and screw up my truck.

Hope someone gets something out of this (even if its just me).