I'm noticing a thunk over potholes w/ my konis and neuspeeds. I'm fairly sure this is because I didn't load the suspension before torqueing on the LCA bushing shock bolt.

Is it ok if I just unbolt it a little bit (till the other end of bolt is flush with shock) and retorque with car at ride height?

And is it ok if I torque it as much as I can by rachet?
I don't have access to a torque wrench right now...

 

if you can access the bolt while the car is on the ground, then that is a good way to do it. Don't go crazy with the torquing. Did you use anti-seize on the bolts' center sections before putting them in? If not, now might be a good time to do that.

 

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im pretty sure this isnt the reason for your "thunk".

but you should still have properly loaded your suspension bushings. and not JUST the shock bolt on the LCA.

i would take the time to jack the car up, put it on jack stands, then take off 1 wheel at a time, loosen every accessible rotating bushing and jack the suspension up until its off the jackstand and retighten.

personally, i dont really use a torque wrench when i do suspension work, except the lugnuts. i just make sure they are good and tight. not gorilla-ing the wrench, not going too light either. thats worked for me.

 

Thanks guys, I think I'll just break down and buy a torque wrench to be sure.
And I'll look into using the anti-seize.


What could be the reason for the thunk though? It isn't a clunk, more of a thunk.

The spring is seated I'm sure.. and I have rubber tubing on a section of coil for each side. It seems to thunk when faced with a very sudden and abrupt dip in the ground (deep potholes & manholes, regular potholes no sound). Over uneven road it's smooth sailing.

And it's only in the rear..

 

bump stops?

 

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I cut em down to just less than an inch in the rear 'cus the rest of it was shattered when I first got the car..

 

how thick is that rubber tubing?

i think neuspeeds are known to make noise because they like to use a lot of dead coils. but if youre using some thick tubing, that would possibly be causing your noise too.

noises are so hard to diagnose over the internet. its really anyones guess.

 

It's not very thick. Maybe a mm or 2. It's tubing taken off a Tein H-Tech spring.
The brown section:


And yeah I realize it's very hard to diagnose noises over the internet. It's like me diagnosing computer problems over the phone lol.

I'm just trying to narrow down the possible problems so I can check em out one by one, because I've had rear thunk woes since I got the car.

But if it's in fact just the neuspeed springs making the noise naturally, then my mind will be at peace and I won't trip about it anymore. Turn the music up or something lol.

Thanks alot though for the input.. any other suggestions?

EDIT - I did some searching and it seems to be a common problem with the neuspeeds. I'm going to load, torque, and wrap the coils in spiral wrap. If that doesn't work, I'll just leave it be.

But one more thing - So it is ok if I just loosen the shock bolts a little, load, and retorque?

 

One thing about raising the suspension up to pre-load the bushings: if you only use a jack and do one corner at a time, then your sway bars are working against you and it won't actually be at static ride height when the jack lifts that corner off the jack stand. You really need to put jack stands under the LCA's on both sides of the car at the same time so that both sides of the suspension will be at ride height at the same time when you tighten the bolts.