I just upgraded my stock suspension to Eibach Pro springs and KYB Gr-2. I also replaced the front lower rear control arm bushings. The drive is much tighter and there is little bounce from the previous setup. When I drive across large potholes or speed bumps there is double clunk from the front end. If I hit a speed bump on the passernger side it sounds like the drive side goes cla-clunk. Same is true for the reverse. The car is not bottoming out or rubbing. It's definitely double clunk and sounds like it coming from the same spot. I replaced the sway bar links and the sound is the same. There was a couple of other people with the same issue but I didn't see the fix for this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Update The sound seems to be getting worse. I checked this morning and the spring has come out of the groove in the bottom of the strut. I will rebuild and see what happens. The picture from KYB looks like they show an allen wrench on the top of the strut cartrige while you turn the 19mm nut. There is no allen on the top of the strut cartridge. How do you keep the strut tube from turning while torquing the nut?
a vise. how is the strut loose? i don't seem to understand? did you not install the gland nut? there is no way that the spring came out because the top nut isn't uber tight.
i know this is probably silly to ask, but did you replace the strut mounts when you replaced the struts? my g/f's camry has pretty bad ones and we hear rattles and shit. could be it.
Re: Update The easiest way to tighten the top nut on any strut, is with an impact gun, either air or electric. The Celica struts no matter who makes them have 2 squared off edges cut in them for the top spring perch to set down over. However if you buy new strut mounts for the top from KYB, you gotta reem them out a bit, cause they want fit down over the strut shaft all the way. If you have assembled everything correctly, you should end up with anywhere from 1/4" to 1/2" of strut shaft showing above the fiber insert in the gland nut. racerb :shock:
I think we're onto something Yes I did buy KYB strut mounts and "thought" I it had seated well but there is only a couple of threads showing on the top of the strut. Maybe a little more than an 1/8 of an inch. I did use a impact wrench to tighten and also tried to torque to spec. Thanks racerb for the info about the KYB strut mounts. What the best way to reem them out? As far as the spring seated in the strut, I was talking about the bottom of the spring which is supposed to sit in a little groove on the strut. After jacking the car up this morning, the loud clunk seems to be much better. :? When I pull apart the struts again, I was thinking of replacing the stop and maybe the bushing that go between the strut, spring and strut mount. Where do you get those? Thanks for the help.
I had a clunk like that when I did my suspension....turns out I didn't have the top nut on tight enough (it was as tight as I could get it on the bench). I gave it a hit with the impact gun while the car was sitting on the ground and it tightened a couple turns and has been fine ever since
Re: I think we're onto something To reem out the mount, I used a combination of a RAT tail fill and a flat Bastard fill, their names are funny but seriously thats what their called. When you get the the mount all the way down on the strut shaft, make sure that both top and bottom spring seats line up properly, the tail of each spring end needs to land in it's groove just right. As for the rubber spring seat isulators, you can get the top one from KYB, but only place I've found for the bottom is Toyota dealer. racerb 8)
