loud rear suspension clunk

[all stock]

bang, clunk, clank, noise, smash, whatever.

s13 240sx,
car was running some unknown lowering springs and shocks, no noise whatsoever. car is caged, stripped, etc.

i just recently installed some JIC FLTA2, 10k/8k rates and took it for a test drive. Immediately driving no more than 50 feet, the rear is banging away. I'm pretty sure I tighted all the nuts and bolts, they were pretty much gunned on. Sounds like rear upper mount, but unsure. I can't reproduce the noise while jumping up and down in the rear, or by jacking up the car and dropping it. all bolts (sway, multilink) were tight and torqued down prior.

i'm going to recheck all the bolts tomorrow, anything else I should look for? Some are saying that JIC's normally clunk, who else has them who has no problems with them?

[nassin31spr]

If non of the bolts are loose and you are sure nothing is hitting anywheres then your jic shocks are probably blown. Take them off and turn then upside down for the day. If they begin to leak then you proceed to kick yourself in the balls for getting ripped off. Recheck your clearances and that all bolts are tight before you begin to kick.

[all stock]

i don't think they're blown, they were just rebuilt. heh, maybe it's a collar, i'll post later tomorrow when i get off work. night shift, yeah!

[sean350z]

Tighten everything down with the car on the ground. A simple test to see if they are blown is to uninstall the coilovers, take the spring off, then compress the strut. If the strut rebounds fine and quick it's not blown. If it doesn't rebound or does it very very slow you have blown coilovers. Coilovers don't always have to leak to be shot.

Another thing to check is your preload on the spring. Make sure the spring isn't just hanging there with no tension when it is up in the air. Also make sure the spring perches are tight.

[all stock]

ok, just double checked, doesn't feel blown at all, suspension feels good. kinda sounds like the cage wacking away too. gotta check all the bolts.

[seven.62]

have you replaced your subframe bushings? that would also cause a loud clunking sound, and since everything else is all good, that would be something you could easily over look. I bought a s14 that had blown rear subframe bushings and it made the same noise that you were describing, and i had checked everything else but that. do yourself a favor if they are bad replace them with the solid aluminum ones, and not the slip-on collars. the solid ones have such a better feel.
good luck!

[cgguy]

Is it only when driving over bumps or all the time?

I would guess subframe bushings, or sloppy pillowball mounts on the coilovers. My Stance have a bit of slop in the pillowball which causes a light "knocking" or "popping" when I drive over a bump. I temporarily cured it by greasing up the pillowbals real good but it came back shortly after. Almost makes me want to run rubber bushings back there instead of the PB's.

[240on430]

Originally Posted by seven.62

have you replaced your subframe bushings? that would also cause a loud clunking sound, and since everything else is all good, that would be something you could easily over look. I bought a s14 that had blown rear subframe bushings and it made the same noise that you were describing, and i had checked everything else but that. do yourself a favor if they are bad replace them with the solid aluminum ones, and not the slip-on collars. the solid ones have such a better feel.
good luck!

the replacements take a lot of time to put on, but they seem to perform so much better than inserts. i don't wanna get inserts because they might not do much and might not fix the noise problem.

[ZenkiKid]

ive had the problem eversince my car was bone stock. Now with coilovers which i know for sure arent blown, i still have the sound, this time its on both sides. Ive just learned to ignore it, until i get subframe spacers, which i hope is the cure for the problem.

[all stock]

sorry, i forgot to mention that i've replaced all my bushings with polyurethane. including subframe and all suspension. my god was that a bitch! can't be subframe. it sounds like metal against metal, really loud. not really hollow sounding. like an a arm hitting against something

[240on430]

...just thought i'd let people know i found a clunk in the trunk to be a hunk of metal that looks like a leaf spring spacer for lift kits.

[silva.240]

hah its always got to be something stupid. so you can break your head and everybody will laugh at you. ha

[Silvia_Guy]

This happened to my miata after changing different spring rates on the tein flex (in my case, rear right). It was due to a loose nut on the top of the coilover. Double check to make sure it's not loose. See picture.

[all stock]

i made sure it wasn't the top nut coilover. thanks for the advice tho.

i haven't driven it that much, too busy with other stuff at th emoment, i'll check it out hopefully at the end of the month.