Hello VanTypes

I just got back from a trip the Steens Mountains (Oregon) in our '85 Westy and had a minor event with the van on the return. I will briefly describe the problem, and then my question to the group is does it make sense that what I did fixed the problem, or is it still lurking ...

I have been driving on a lot of forest service roads which tend to have a lot of washboard and holes, which means the van is exposed to a lot of vibration.  This weekend while driving on a 2 lane state highway a large truck went by and as the van rocked there was a very loud bang from the back. We thought something had come off the truck and gone under the van and hit. I stopped but could not see anything. We drove another 2 hours without incident, and everything running fine, till I pulled into my driveway. I have to go over a curb into the drive and as the left rear wheel hit the curb we got the same very loud bang.

This morning I pulled the wheek and inspected everything. I rocked the van by hand but could not produce any noise. I removed the left wheel and shock, checked the CVs and axles, and looked everywhere. There was no sign of anything moving that shouldn't move. The only thing I found was that the top bolt of the left rear shock was not as tight as Bentley requires. I torqued everything and went for a test drive and (so far) no noise.  That included driving over the curb to my drive faster than we had before, and no noise.

I am not sure that a shock bolt not fully tight would produce such a loud noise, but given that it only happens when the van was rocking it would seem to be related to the shock or springs.

Should I relax and consider this fixed, or am I overlooking something and need to go dig deeper?

Thanks!

Dave B
Boise