After many attempts to tighten every piece of my rear suspension I still have no conclusion to a mystery rattling/clunking noise on my '02 WRX. I have stock struts with H&R sport springs. The noise sounds like it is coming from the top of the strut, which I have re-tightened 3 or 4 times just to be sure. Is it possible that the pillow ***** are bad? Does anyone have any advice???

Please Help!

Thanks!!

 

try turning the springs on the strut body and then tightening things up again. i seem to recall people occasionally having problems with the springs not seating quite right, and popping when unloaded/loaded.

 

Interesting - I will give it a shot.

Any other ideas? I have been tightening the strut nut with an impact gun to about 85 ft/lbs. Too tight?

 

i don't have my shop manual in front of me right now, so i'm not sure what the torque spec on that nut is.

 

For the strut top nut, the FSM spec is 41ft-lbs.
Your H&R springs drop ~2", IIRC...that may be a bit much in the rear, especially.
Did you re-assemble the struts properly? No leftover parts? Did you grease the perches, washers, and bearings?

 

The springs I am using are 1.8" drop in the front, 1.5" in the rear. I will try retorquing them to 41 ft/lbs. I did not grease anything, and they are assembled correctly (I think). Maybe I can get a scematic (sp?) somewhere for proper order of installation. There are no bearings in the rear pillow ball.

It honestly sounds like its loose, but I know there are tight. Maybe I just tightened the rear too much.

Any other possibilities?

 

Pillow ***** ARE bearings
Are they loose? Do they rattle? Are they greased?

Your tops may be shot....

 

can you get someone else to drive the car while you attempt to localize the noise?

also, how tight did you make your swaybar mounts? too tight and they will creak and clunk.

ken

 

Hmm. I am getting some good ideas here of where to look.

Which swaybar mounts are you talking about ride5000? The ones on the end links or the ones on the rear subframe?

Uncle Scotty - where do you grease the rear pillow ball at? Does it need to come out, how can I tell if its shot?

Thanks for all your help! Keep the info coming!

 

i found the ones attaching the sway bar to the frame of the car had been creaking/clunking, despite the use of lithium grease on assembly. backing off 1/4 turn solved it.

ken

 

cool, i will give it a shot!

 

i don't know what other parts you've got installed, but there have been some cases of pillowball equipped endlinks hitting the sway bar and making a clunking noise. i had that happen, until about 1mm of material came of the endlink from the impacts.

 

You can grease the top of the pillowball without removing the tops....

It is posible that your swaybar may be hitting your exhaust....check where the bar and the exhaust are close and see if there are marks on the bar or exhaust.

 

I failed to mention that I have a 22mm adjustable Whiteline rear swaybar. I also notice the noise is isolated per side - ie. if I hit a bump on the left side, the left side makes noise, and same for the right. They rarely make noise at the same time.

 

get the car up in the air and start looking for things underneath that show signs of rubbing, touching, etc. it sounds like you've tried about everything you could on the top of the strut, so it might be time to start looking underneath the car.