My original suspension was in need of replacing on my 95 SHO. I purchased a donor car that had Koni struts and Intrax springs. I had the Koni's rebuilt and purchased all new parts for the rest of the assembly. This past weekend I installed them and now have a clicking noise when I turn the steering wheel. It almost sounds like metal grinding against metal, sort of a grinding noise. I have had the car aligned, removed the spot welds and enlarged the strut tower holes to allow for alignment. I am thinking I made the mistake of using an impact wrench when tightening the strut screw. As a result the strut plate bearing might be damaged now. I loosened the strut screw and it has gotten better but still have the issue. Before I tear into the struts again has anyone else have a noise issue after installing struts and figured out the solution?
Front struts clicking noise
- Thread starter pejohnson
- Start date
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you may need the spacer between the strut bearing and the strut mount - without that on the cars that need it, the strut mount rubs on the top of the spring when the steering wheel is turned.
Thanks rubydist. Good point, I did not install the spacer. On the donor car that I took them off of did not have the spacer either so. I wanted the front to sit as low as possible so I skipped installing them. If I recall the spacer is approximately 1/4" to 5/16" thick. Anyone else have this issue, comments or recommendations? I'm going to tear into it in the morning. I was going to put a spare strut bearing on to see if that helps but I think rubydist has the solution. What I'm also a little puzzled is that I measured the before and after dimensions of the front finder to ground and with the new setup it only lowered the car by 5/8". Granted the car had the original struts, so maybe they were sagging a bit, but I was expecting a little lower stance. I think the dimensions were 27" on the front and 26 1/2" on the back (top of fender well to ground).
turbo79
SHO Member
What rubydist says, plus you are on to something when you mention that you used a rattle wrench to tighten the strut rod nut. Now, you said "screw," did you mean the nut?
If you meant the nut, fix it! It will mean removing the strut and applying a spring compressor in order to torque it properly, but if you look at the instructions inside any box that non-Koni struts come in you'll see a huge caution about over tightening the strut rod nut. It can break if overtightened, and if it does at speed on a front strut you can figure a totaled car.
Long story short for me: I had one break at low speed, and a shop that I don't believe uses a torque wrench had done strut work twice. Even though it's a large nut, the torque range is 37-50 ft. lbs.
Okay so I think I finally have it figured out. Back when I drilled out the strut towers, I forgot I broke a pilot bit off in one of the towers. Long story short, it was rubbing on top of the strut. Another issue was when I got the car realigned, one of the struts was moved to one side of the tower and rubbing the edge of the tower. I eliminated this by installing the 1/4" spacers which pushed the top of the strut down just enough to clear.
It took me four separate tear downs to figure this out. Close to 8 hours. On the last tear down, I pried a little to ******* the CV shaft and pulled it out at the joint. So I had to buy a new one. Needless to say, I know how to install struts now.
turbo79 - you are correct about the strut bolt being too tight. No more impact wrenches for me. I found out it does not require much torque at all. It's not under a lot of pressure.
After all this I was a bit disappointed the car wasn't lowered more than it is. Each corner was only lowered about 5/8". Does that sound right? As stated above, the front dimensions (from ground to bottom of fender well) was 27" and back 26 1/2". I'm debating on having the tab at the bottom of the strut relocated up maybe 1/2" to 3/4". I'd rather do that than cut the springs. I'm not sure if this would make it impossible to align the car then. Anyone else try this or have dimensions on what worked for them? I'm not looking to create a low rider, the car just still looks high in the front to me.
It took me four separate tear downs to figure this out. Close to 8 hours. On the last tear down, I pried a little to ******* the CV shaft and pulled it out at the joint. So I had to buy a new one. Needless to say, I know how to install struts now.
turbo79 - you are correct about the strut bolt being too tight. No more impact wrenches for me. I found out it does not require much torque at all. It's not under a lot of pressure.
After all this I was a bit disappointed the car wasn't lowered more than it is. Each corner was only lowered about 5/8". Does that sound right? As stated above, the front dimensions (from ground to bottom of fender well) was 27" and back 26 1/2". I'm debating on having the tab at the bottom of the strut relocated up maybe 1/2" to 3/4". I'd rather do that than cut the springs. I'm not sure if this would make it impossible to align the car then. Anyone else try this or have dimensions on what worked for them? I'm not looking to create a low rider, the car just still looks high in the front to me.
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