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Dear Vernon,
Good a.m. and may this find you well. It sounds to me as if something either is badly worn, or has come loose. See below, and extract from the FAQs regarding front-end clunky noises.
I'd get the inspection done ASAP. It should be pretty clear what needs attention. If you must drive the car before the inspection, drive gently: e.g.,avoid making sharp, fast turns or heavy loads.
The power steering fluid sounds as if it needs to be changed. I've never done this, so have no insights to offer. There is nothing in FAQs on this procedure. Surely another brickboarder has done this, and will chime in.
Yours faithfully,
spook (I try really, really hard not to be spooky)
--------------extract from FAQs ----------------------------------
700/940 Series. The two "most common" areas of clunkiness, if you will, on the 700 series are: Worn ball joint - Being ungreasable, these can deteriorate and cause the strut assembly to have play at the base of the strut cartridge. Not necessarily detectable through the bounce test but under vehicle load (dynamic), it can show up (audible). Correction: replace ball joint(s).- Worn/broken upper shock mounting - the large rubber doughnut inside of the mount can be split and there'd be no visible signs of it's demise except when removed. However, the warning sign of this is not usually a clunking under straight line driving or under the bounce test. It shows up under low speed cornering as a mild "clunk" at or close to full steering lock. However, my experience was that as it got worse, it did start to emit audible warning under driving load. [Editor:] The upper strut mount bearing, located within this doughnut, can also fail and give clunky feelings, usually on steering hard to the stops.
Note: the infamous "bounce test" is NOT an accurate way to pinpoint any front end/shock/strut problems. Remember, that as you are bouncing the front, you are really having to "defeat" the spring strength first (since they are what's holding up the vehicle under it's own weight) before any other problem areas will show up. This usually takes dynamic (moving) loads to recreate. Other sources to look at:
The bushings, as you've mentioned. Usually, broken bushings can actually be seen as cracks at the visible edges. Not always detectable as such but worth a look.
The strut inserts themselves. Once they've exhausted themselves (and perhaps have leaked their hydraulic "blood", there's not much else to do but clunk against the side walls of the pistons.
Sway bar bushings - if they are worn at the center mounts, the bar can be hammering the frame.
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