lbrowne

Everything seems fine when shes on the ground.

Side to side, up and down, no clunking whatsoever.

Put her up in the air by route of the differential, put jackstands in place. For now the axle is still under load and I'm looking around everywhere.

The emergency rubber stops show the same on both sides of the car, nothing out of the ordinary (the rubber chunks that are on the chassis that prevent the axle hitting too hard in case of a harsh bang i guess)

I grab the exhaust. on the passenger side next to the rubber muffler hook hanger or whatever its called, i can move the exhaust up and down a good 1/2 inch i swear. i get the squeaky rubbery sound i sometimes hear when i go over jittery bumps.

i should almost take a pic of this exhaust hanger, i don't think my exhaust should move liike that....its definitely not holding the metal exhaust hook piece snug....

whats my next move?

lbrowne

Update, I unbolted the passenger side shock at the bottom while the axle is still under some load.

popped the end out and it slowly but forcefully extended its way out. I tried compressing it myself it took some strain to get it back into place no different than when the shock was new.

The bolts for the LCAs, the relocation brackets, the panhard bar ends, the swaybar ends/bushings, everything is tight as it should be.

the springs are nestled perfectly into place like they should be.

i'm starting to lean towards the exhaust hangers in the rear

lbrowne

I hate to be a nag but I got the car up and all apart.

would jamming cardboard or something in the rubber exhaust hanger be a good temp fix? I need to stuff something in there and see if that gets rid of my noise....

Other than that everything looks good.

LSTUD

if there is room you can put a bolt through, I have had to do that before. Just get it started and smack it in with a hammer. this will work until you get new hangers.

lbrowne

Ok, I secured the exhaust a bit better and for a bit i thought I had cured the problem.

Nope. Still got the f'n sound. I give up.

She rides fine just that bonking sound when i hurt certain bumps.

I'm throwing in the towel because everything else under that rear checked out perfect.

Xride

could it be from the otehr side?

I had a sound in my other one that I could have sworn was the pass side.
and when I got hte salvage back and taking it apart I found out that it was the charcoal canister on the drivers side by the fuel neck, you could see where it was banging around, and had almost worn a spot through it.

SSTAT

I amy sound like a broken record with this loose LCA stuff but bear with me. I'd bet money its your left LCA. I know there are torque specs, and I know they arent "loose" per say, but give the bolts a couple of extra turns and let us know how it goes. Also, to help confirm this, before you do it try accelerating hard in reverse and slamming the brakes, then hard again in forward, etc. If it reproduces the sound then it probably is the LCA. But honestly, even if this doesnt do it I wold still crank on those bolts a little and see what happens. If it helps just keep doing the test above and adding a turn until it stops.

97BlackT\A

Another remote possibility is your transmission mount. I had similar noises seemingly from the rear of the car during rough transitions like railroad tracks. It sounded like my exhaust or loose spare tire gear, but when I yanked, pushed, tugged, and even kicked the exhaust around I got nothing and with the spare removed nothing there either. I checked everything out back, even fuel tank straps and rear bumper hardware, taillights, whatever I could think of (getting desperate and frustrated).

Turns out the tranny mount was bad; mostly cracked through the rubber from my exhuberant driving style. I replaced it and all is well. I can only assume the trans/torque arm were moving up and down enough under certain circumstances to move the exhaust more than I could by hand and thump around.

Also check for loose power antenna mounts, if applicable.

97BlackT\A

Oh, and if you have poly bushings, make sure they are lubed. Dry ones can stick and "pop" loose as the suspension travels.

Xride

thats a good idea.

lbrowne

Everything is lubed and everything is tight. I checked my stationed antenna, I don't have a power one. either way I had checked that too.

Maybe the rough roads where I live are too blame. My buddy with a 94 stealth TT says he has the same problem with his car with driving around town.

Stoopalini

How did you go about tightening the LCAs up? Did you tighten them with the car on stands, or on the ground? What ft/lbs did you torque them to?

I'll bet one of your LCAs it not at the correct torque spec ...

Thomas.

Xride

what is the correct torque spec?

when taking my stockers off they were jsut REALLY tight, even with the snipe had a hard tiem getting htem off (and htere was NO rust at all) so when doing them up I jsut got them as good as I could with the 3/4 rachtet.

Stoopalini

Going from memory, I think it was somewhere around 70 - 75 ft/lbs ..... but I'll have to look it up when I get home to verify.

The hard part is getting the torque wrench on the LCA bolt with the car at curb height, on the ground, with the tires on. It makes it really difficult to get in there and torque it to spec.

I was getting a loud pop from the rear of my car after installing my SLP subframe connectors. After reading the correct removal/replacement procedure for the LCAs, I went back and tightened the LCA bolts as described in the book, and the clunk noise hasn't happened since.

I know exactly what it's like to hear a loud "clunk" from the rear of the car just from hitting the smallest imperfection in the road! It was very annoying for a while .... just glad I had the service manual to point me in the right direction (best $50 I've spent on the car )

Thomas.

Stoopalini

I just looked up the torque spec, and it's 74 ft/lbs (I was close ). Also, the note in the book states it must be tightened with the suspension at curb height, so you can jack it up and take the tires off, just make sure the suspension is not flexed out at all.

Thomas.