ihatemyusername

When I bought my car it didn't have the dust covers on the front strut mount top hat where all the ball bearings are at. Where you would unbolt the strut. So there is little grease inside of it and the grease that is there is filthy with dirt and such. I need to know how to clean this out and what kind of grease I should use to put in there.

I believe this may be the cause of a clunking noise I am getting over bumps. So all help and advice is much appreciated.

Jetech38

If I'm not mistaken, you can just hit it with a rag, maybe some shop air and repack it with general purpose bearing grease. As far as the clunking, you may look into spring seating. I recently encountered a clunk/pop during low speed right turns that was coming from the front driver's side strut. I pulled the strut off, disassembled, reassembled and reinstalled it and that seemed to fix it. I have reason to believe it was assembled incorrectly when the previous owner had the struts changed.

If you go that route, make sure you follow the FSM when you reassemble the strut. There's 2 holes (one on the spring lower seat and one on the upper -stick a big rod in them) that need to be aligned as you reassemble it to provide proper spring seating.

Hope this helps.

ihatemyusername

Thanks for the info on cleaning it. I didn't think to use air.

And i just put in new springs and made sure to align those two holes because I didn't do it the first time I put them together. And that was giving me the popping noise when turning but not after realigning the holes.

The noise I have now isn't when turning. Its when going over small bumps.
When installing the new springs the struts didn't look blown so im trying to do a step at a time to diagnose it.

Jetech38

Idk how the aftermarket springs will affect the suspension, but it's probably safe to assume they didn't design them to clunk over bumps... Perhaps it's in the way you torqued the bolts? I followed this: http://www.evomoto.com/tech_articles..._article_id=22 when I did mine. Step 25 says to put the car on the ground before you torque the 3 14mm's and the big boy in the middle. You may try that.

ihatemyusername

Sorry for any misunderstanding. I have actually had this noise since I bought the car. Not just after changing my springs.
And btw I went from Tein S Techs. To GTWorx springs so I am actually not as low as it originally was. More closer to stock height. And I followed every little step and tightened everything up proper.

Jetech38

Ahhhh, gotcha. If that's the case, I'd probably start looking at wearable parts, eg. ball joints, bushings. A more expensive option would be struts or the top hat itself.

ihatemyusername

I appreciate the advice. I'll update when I've gotten to it