Front Suspension Play

[RustyBucket]

I took my car through a safety inspection the week before last and the mechanic told me that I have some play in the front suspension. He told me it was in the kingpin, which I ckecked yesterday, ensuring the top bolt was torqued properly. I was speaking with a fellow member about it yesterday and he suggested it may be the upper link and not the kingpin that is the problem. The mechanic told me he'd never looked at a Q45 before and wasn't familiar with the suspension setup, so it's entirely possible he's mistaken about the kingpin.

The play is only in one direction; when I have the wheel up in the air, I have one hand on the top of the tire and the other on the bottom. If i push with my upper hand and pull with my lower (or vice versa), There is play. When the wheel is off I can't get enough leverage to induce the play, which makes diagnosis tricky. I've been thinking if I can grab the thrid link and induce play there, then I might be able to narrow things down a bit.

What is the best way to go about checking if the upper link is the problem?

[kevindanielk]

With the tire off, grab the knuckle arm(the one that's bolted to the upper link and to the kingpin. Pushing and pulling on that arm, you will be able to tell whether it's the kingpin or the upper link that has play. I also thought it was my kingpin at first that had play, but it's was and usually is the upper link on the G50 Qs.

[RustyBucket]

Thanks for the reply I kind of forgot about this thread because I figures it out. I guess I may as well post up what I found:

The way I could induce the play was to push firmly and sharply inward on the upper side of the wheel like this:


I tried pushing and pulling on the third link (like you said in your post) to induce play, but it was solid and would not budge.

I actually had to get my wife to help me by pushing on the wheel while I loooked around underneath. It's defintiely the kingpin because I could see movement in the place where the thrid link joins the wheel hub assembly. If I put my finger on it while the wheel was being pushed, I could feel the gap between the pieces and the angle of each piece relative to the other changing.

If you look in the following picture, you can see where the upper link joins the hub assembly. It's where the black painted piece meets the unpainted aluminum piece. Below this, you can see the lower kingpin nut. It is where the two pieces meet that I could see and feel play.

[kevindanielk]

Make sure and get another Q savy person's opinion on that kingpin play. I also first thought it was play in my kingpin, changed the kingpin and the play was still there afterwards. I think that the knuckle arm might also wear and that's what may also need to be changed on mine, but I haven't done it yet. Double check. Those kingpins seem very sturdy and rarely need changing, judging by the lack of posts and threads on them.