Clunk when steering turned most of the way left or right

Hello,

I've been looking all over but can't find if this already been addressed.

For a year or so my 2009 Forester Limited has been making this strange clunk when I turn the steering wheel to make 90° turn either way. Then usually after that on the highway the car will pull the direction that I just turned. It doesn't seem anything to do with alignment or the tie rod ends. It happened after I replaced the struts on all corners. At first I thought it might be the struts but this never happened on other cars when I replaced the struts so I'm looking for some other cause.

Something with the rack and pinion?

I appreciate any ideas. Thank you

 

Did you install new strut bearings or "top hats" when you did the struts? Did you do the work yourself or did a shop do it?

 

That sounds like it could be a ball joint. That would definitely cause the alignment to change.

 

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I did replace the strut mounts on top. Did it myself on my street "garage".

 

Hmm...not sure if it's a ball joint. I've had them go bad before and they shake a lot and rattle a lot on bumpy roads. This is behaving differently than that.

 

Ok. Here's something. I haven't done struts on a Subie yet but I've done a lot of them on other cars. This past weekend I setup the struts for our BMW CHUMP car, there is a fat washer between the strut bushing (top hat) and the upper spring perch. Are those separate on our cars? If you don't have this washer in, the spring perch rubs on the underside of the strut bushing. The washer separates the bearing in the strut bushing from the spring perch. It's not uncommon get the order of this hardware mixed up on the BMWs. Maybe it's similar?

I'll look up some diagrams of our strut setup. I'm gonna need to do this too anyway...

Here's a diagram I found. This one, #13.


On a BMW if this washer isn't in here, the upper perch rubs on the underside of the strut bushing and that would definitely make it do what you're describing.