Rear Shock Top Mounting – clunking

[DKWW2000]

Have you checked your sway bar & drop link bushes, they have been known to clunk when failing?

[Casey]

^^ Thanks Pete. I haven't had the chance to do much until today. I went for a short drive before I jacked the car up and the clunking sound seems to have got a lot worse

Before seeing your post above I noted the swaybar/arb and droplink bushes all looked pretty crumbly, so whilst the car is in the air I'll fit the Energysuspension polybushes I have on the shelf (that were intended for KIMI 1!). Hopefully that will be the solution, as I can't see anything else under there that is loose.

[DKWW2000]

When you come to the drop links you will probably find that the spacer tubes will have rusted onto the bolts rendering them both (Tube & Bolt) useless. It is best to have the bolts & tubes ready & just cut the old ones off saving a lot of time & wasted effort in trying to save them. I seem to recall the bolts are 160mm , the tubes I could measure as I have a old one in the garage somewhere if needed. Best of luck.

[Casey]

Pete, you were correct, at least about the tube on the passenger side . It would seem the passenger side was changed at some point - very little corrosion and one of the nuts was different to that on the passenger side

DSC_0019_800.jpg (426.79 KiB) Viewed 4471 times

My angle grinder was needed to cut the bolt free from the bracket!

Here is a pic of one of the crumbly bushes

DSC_0018_800.jpg (231.66 KiB) Viewed 4471 times

No matter, I'm in luck, as I have TWO sets of Energy Suspension drop links, and they come with the bolts, tubes and nuts! I bought a complete set of bushes from the USA for KIMI 1, but there was a problem with some of the items supplied being incorrect, so the supplier sent further parts at no extra charge and I ended up with two sets of droplinks for some reason!

DSC_0023_800.jpg (330.07 KiB) Viewed 4471 times

I've now de-rusted, de-greased and "Metal-Prepped" the swaybar, axle bush supports and drop link brackets and hoping to get a couple of coats of POR15 on them tomorrow. Hopefully I can then get everything back on the car later this week and see if it'd cured the clunking noise. If not, it was a job that needed doing anyway

[DKWW2000]

The tubes on the rear are slightly longer than those on the front, but I think the bolts are the same length, but I think they are M8s & front M10s. I guess the tubes are shorter on the front because of the thickness of the swinging arm? Not sure if the difference is important. I had to make some longer tubes for the rear as I think the rotten ones were the originals.

[Casey]

I have to trim off the shoulders on the bushes (as on right of pic) and then the overall length was perfect:



Swaybar/ARB now back on car and all is well

Well, that issue is sorted, but thought I'd better check around for other worn bushes and found the idler arm had about 5mm of vertical free play... I'll post up my main car thread about that soon http://rx7fb.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2989&start=30