'94 E320 with 120K



I looked into the posts surrounding the Thrust Arm. It does seem very intuitive that this would be the culprit. However, Steve Brotherton refers to another arm, 210 350 33 06, in various posts and in a technical article titled “Alignment/Chassis Daignostics” as common cause of driveability issues. This arm is called the Torque Strut. It is the upper most attachment to the wheel carrier on the forward side of the axle above the Tie Rod which is above the Thrust arm (the lower most attachment on the forward side of the wheel carrier). There is some ambiguity in the collective posts with regard to the differentiation between the Thrust Arm and Torque Strut as they relate to driveabilty issues in that references name a single link at issue, but the link could be either the Thrust Arm or Torque Strut. Any thoughts Arthur or Steve?

By the way, the Torque Strut looks like a fairly difficult R&R; with its proximity to the subframe and wheel carrier backing plate. On the other hand, the Thrust Arm looks like a quick job.

Following up with my situation, I checked out the all the components of the front and rear suspension. No control arm bushings are fissured or torn from their contact surfaces and movement occurs only with a firm grasp and twist. They seem a bit dry though. I did find that one of my rear shocks was soft while the other was fine. Frankly, I did the bounce test and the damping action was suspect to me, so I went out on a limb and replaced the shocks with Bilstien Comforts after work today . It was only when I had the shocks out that I was able to confirm my suspicion; the right side shock was significantly easier to compress and had a noticeably slower return rate than the left. The rear of the car is now much more stable though doubt that this will be the fix for the crosswinds driveabilty issue. We'll see though.