okay so I replaced the front struts on my g/f's 2002 civic with some new KYB assemblies and during the process of replacing the struts I had to take the assemblies to a shop to have the spring pressed back onto the new strut. Everything looked okay and when I reinstalled the left (drivers side) strut is now making this weird spring creaking noise. It only does this noise when the car's springs are loaded with the car's weight and when I closely inspected where the noise was coming from it looked like it was coming from the spring shifting on the spring land on the strut. Now I wrenched on the spring to butt it up against the spring stop point but when I turn the steering wheel it moves.

I did notice that when I was installed the driver's side strut that the shop sort of misaligned the top spring land and the spring looks like it is about and inch or so off the top spring land's "butt point".

Can someone tell me if the top spring land can only be installed in a certain way? IIRC the 3 screw studs that go through the shock tower will ONLY fit in 1 way and that the studs will not line up any other way correct?

Thanks

 

4th question on the FAQ's: https://honda-tech.com/zerothread/2247386

 

turn it up side down. it happen to me when i installed my springs, you hear weird noises when you steer L AND R RIGHT? LIKE A POPPING NOISE.

 

Ah I love Honda Tech... there are always people and FAQs that offer an answer to almost anything....

Since i've swapped the struts out the steering wheel alignment is out of wack now too.

The car still tracks perfectly straight but the steering is cocked to the left by about an inch a half from center.

I did not bend or whack anything so I'm a bit surprised that it would be out by that much.

Suggestions as to why its out of line now? Normally I would do an alignment everytime I mess with suspension but I rarely if ever had this issue with my EF/EG/EK civics....

Thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by stevescivic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Since i've swapped the struts out the steering wheel alignment is out of wack now too. The car still tracks perfectly straight but the steering is cocked to the left by about an inch a half from center. I did not bend or whack anything so I'm a bit surprised that it would be out by that much.

Suggestions as to why its out of line now? Normally I would do an alignment everytime I mess with suspension but I rarely if ever had this issue with my EF/EG/EK civics....

Thanks
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When you lowered the car, did you take it to get aligned? That's usually the reason why your steering wheel is off. Plus, your car probably has toe issues right now, and is burning through your tires. You'll want to get it on an alignment rack soon.

 

got the same problem before...1st i looked at the springs if it's sitting properly but there's nothing wrong with it so i guessed my bearing is f*ck'd since those things fell off when i was removing my old springs.. so i changed that thing did an alignment and everything is back to normal

 

So I removed the strut and basically what the problem was the the upper spring land wasn't aligned to the end of the spring so when the car was loaded the spring would torque past what it was designed to move by about 1.5 inches and then it would "pop/creak".

I pretty much unscrewed the top hat as far as it would safely unscrew and then used my spring compressor to squish the spring just enough to undo it from the top land and realign it. After I did that I checked everything and b/c the spring is seated in its proper place it no longer creaks and pops.