bad suspension?

okay here is the problem, when driving slowly over any little crack or bump in the road, i hear a “clud” noise comming from my driver side rear suspension when i hit each little bump. it does it in every little uneven road surface which gets very annoying. also, i have noticed that the suspension noise does not occur when hitting bumps on the road if i press the break. can anyone troubleshoot and tell me what my suspension problem may be? thanx in advance

It could be several things. I had a similar problem on my '90. It rattled like a pos in the back when I went over railroad tracks and things like that. New trailing arm bushings took care of that. Jack it up and check out the bushings. Also make sure the wheel doesn’t have any play in it. If you can grasp the top and bottom of the tire and move it towards or away from you at all then the wheel bearing is failing. That could be one reason the noise goes away if you hit the brakes, they will take up the slack of the loose bearing somewhat. I’d check the caliper too to make sure it’s bolted on tight. I noticed when I was fixing my trailing arm bushings that on one of the calipers someone hadn’t tightened down the bolts properly and they were threaded out partway, not good. It could be a failed strut too possibly.

ill definately check those things out. the noise sounds like metal on metal noise, and the key factor is that the noise goes totally away when going over bumps if i hold the break down. ive done this many times trying to isolate the problem. i also got that caliper worked on a couple of months ago. any other things i should check out?

Had the same problem after working on my brakes. It got louder, and after the second time shecking for a problem I just happened to see that my caliper was completly loose!

Check the four bolts of the rear caliper. The 2 that align the caliper (rubber boots), and the 2 that hold the bake assembly to the trailing arm.