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hard clunk when turning steering to the right


Mech
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Have a clunk in the steering when getting close to full lock, mostly happens when turning to the right. I have D2 coilovers installed that I welded myself. I only have put 5k miles on the car in 5 years and I cant remember if it did it before the coilover install. I have checked my welds, they look good. Checked pitman/idler arm and the bolts, tie rod ends, bolts that hold the steering box, center link, strut bar and bolts, ball joints and lower control arms. With the D2 install i did new ball joints and factory mitsu wheel bearings and races. No play in the wheel bearings. Subframe bolts are tight too. There is nothing I can see visually. I am really stumped on this, the clunk is fairly hard. so something is going on. The only thing I can think of is the D2 spring is binding up somehow when turning the wheel and the clunk is the spring, clunking back into place. I thought maybe I could tighten the lower nuts on the coilover shaft to put more tension on the spring, but that would lower the car more and I dont want it any lower than it is. Any thoughts?

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Will it make the clunk with the front on stands? I'm guessing it won't ... but if it will then get a buddy and start a game of follow that sound. May be able to do that with it on the ground too. I had an issue with the cosmo coil overs where it would do something similar. The fix was a 5/8" washer on the top hat. 

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With the car jacked up front wheels on the ground I can turn the springs by hand. They just have slight bit of resistance.

 

it does not make the clunk with the front wheels in the air.

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So watched some youtube vids, and they recommend putting some grease on the spring top hat and lower spring perch. I did that and nothing changed. I also sprayed some WD-40 on the pillow ball mounts, still the same. all bolts and nuts are tight on the coilovers. I have those soft rounded curbs in my neighborhood, when i drive onto the curb a little abruptly with just the right front tire i get the same noise. So it's not just limited to turning the steering wheel.....

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Check out this thread. D_Venable talks about adding a washer. This is what I did when running the cosmos and it cured my issue

https://www.starquestclub.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/97622-coillover-clunk/&tab=comments#comment-950759

Edited by psu_Crash
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Have you checked strut mount or strut nut in center of mount? Had a friend with a similar issue years ago and it was the strut nut on the camber plate was loose and was creating the same issue but no noise when in air.

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  • 1 year later...

So it ended up being a loose locking nut. Its the large nut that tightens the threaded shock body to the shock/spindle.  Not sure what the technical name is. Jam locking nut i guess. It was NOT the two lower spring perch nuts. It was the large single nut below those.

I had checked the nut, but only by hand, i didnt take the supplied D2 spanner to it, to check tightness. 

Anyways, the knock was intermitent, because the nut was only slightly loose. so when you turned the steering wheel, sometimes the nut tightened itself just enough to stop the knock, then sometimes loosened itself when turning. Putting that grease on the top hat was a mistake, because tons of grit and dirt got stuck to the grease over time. so i completely removed, dissasembled and cleaned the coilcovers on both sides, then renistalled.

Long story short, the knocking noise was the threaded shock body banging around in the threaded piece that you weld to the spindle. When you screw the two together, theres a little play in it. you can rock the threaded shock body a little back and forth in the wlded spindle piece. When the locking nut gets tightened, that play goes away. Really, the threaded piece shoudl fit a little more snug then that.

And i am very sure I had tightened that nut when i first installed these. This time I hit the locking nut spanner with a mallet to give an extra little tightness. 

Happy to say no more knocking. 

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