How did you make this conclusion that I didn't do it as often as I should when I had the bushings for only 3000 miles and greased it 3 times already?


Sorry about the low blow re Bush. Shows you how far you can go with alot of money and no brain.

 

Harvard grad, fighter pilot. He's actually employed others over the years, rather than being a life-long duplicitious politician and male gold-digger. And Bush would probably have pulled the bushings.

 

first off I work 60 hrs a week and do not have the time to do all this until a sunday. That being said, this thread dosen't span that much time from when it was first started. I would very much like it to be something else before going through all the effort to press out possibly very good bushings. I would have hated to do all this only to find it was a loose shock or something. The other thing is I think both of us don't want it to be a bushing problem so we are trying to check the other things to make sure that is not what the clunk is. I never said my clunk was the bushings, only that I have a similar problem to pooman and am in the process of trying to find out what it is.

As for greasing the bushings. As per instruction, zerk fittings are optional. If they are optional then one is left using the lubrication available at the time of installing them. I have the zerk fittings but I assume others did not do this. What are those people supposed to look forward to if they did not install the optional zerk fittings.

Like I said. I do not know if my clunk is bushing related. oNly that I have a clunk. once I find out what it is I will post a reply. I am just trying to get info. People are so uptight about things.

Mike

 

hah, hah, a true believer. Do you remember who Bush traded Sammy Sosa from the Texas Ranger away for?

Don't know do you?

My point exactly. The guy is can't do anything right: ran two businesses into bankruptcy; mismanaged the Texas Rangers; got through clean in governing Texas b/c the Democrats in Texas are actually Republicrats; made the French look good and the US look stupid; made the Euros rise 30% higher than the dollar (who can ******* believe that? The shitty Euros is worth more than the dollar?).

Hell, he couldn't pull a Bush(ing) to save his own ***. He would probably order the National Guard to cut the control arms away from the subframe with a torch and then melt the nylon bushings from the inside out and declare that the mission of eliminating clunking was accomplished.

Back to thread: Like M Fillipello, I work like 60-70 hours a week. After those kind of hours, the last thing I want to do is crawl under the car and do all this wrenching. And I don't feel like dropping my car off to those all thumbs Mazda monkeys either.

I was happy with the bushing for what 2500 miles. Now, whatever is causing the noise is driving me to drink.

 

For what it's worth, I was having a some clunking from the front end that sounded exactly like the problem you are having. After about 30 minutes of driving you'd get solid clunks when you hit bumps or took turns and shifted weight around. Honestly it sounded like it did when my spherical bushings were beat. It had been doing this for about 6 months and made the car dissapointing to drive, particularly on my 1+ hour back-road commute. I drove it less and less frequently, partly because of this.

I suspected a lot of things.. the Unobtaniums, sway bar links, strut bar, etc. I've always kept my bushings lubed but who knows. I tried to reason what it could be as it feels great for the first 20-30 mins of driving. What would develop slop as it worked over time? Something heating up? ****, I don't know.. the only thing we could imagine would be struts. I had stock R1 struts/springs on the car so I ordered up some Koni's, some Eibachs and new upper strut mounts. I also picked up some heim joints to replace the sway bar links.

When I got everything apart, I checked the bushings in the upper a-arm. One showed a little wear but nothing major. It did have some road grit in it but still greased well. I cleaned & re-lubed and with the sleve inserted all the way it felt pretty decent. Definitely not enough to be the clunk culprit. (I didn't check all of the other bushings, just re-greased them.) Sway bar links had a bit of play in them but my gut tells me that wasn't it either.

Aside from the rubber parts on the struts having 70k miles on them and being well compacted, the only other thing that didn't seem right were the struts. Question: Were the stock R1 cartridges gas-filled? The service manual seemed to think so but when you'd compress them they wouldn't rebound. Perhaps the clunking was coming from the struts? Again, I can't be sure.

What I can be sure of is my drive into work this morning. Not a clunk all hour. I was hitting bumps intentionally trying to make it sound off but nothing. Perhaps because it's all freshly lubed? Maybe. Time will tell. For now I'm happy with my quiet suspension though.

Dave

 

Thanks for the info dave. I leave for SEMA this weekend so it will have to wait for a while. I will check all those things as well.

Mike

 

If your R1 shock doesn't expand after you compress them, it's a bad shock. A symptom of a failed shock is the car being very very unstable above 80mph. Unstable meaning that it feels like it will spin out of control even if you're going 80mph in a straight line. It will feel very unstable during all out acceleration too.

I have Konis Yellow, about 3 years old with 10K on them. Haven't been to the track with them at all. No leaks and when I took the suspension apart to mount the bushing last year, I checked each Koni to make sure when you compress them they expand back.

 

I guess both shocks are blown then.. neither shock rebounded. They seemed to dampen decently though. The car wasn't wild at all. (130 at summit felt smooth) I just brought it up because they made noises like you were describing.. sounded fine when cold but after things warmed up it sounded like the suspension gnomes were playing the drums with rubber mallets.

Good luck with your troubleshooting. I hope you find the culprit.

 

well it seems that my clunking is coming from the caster bushing location on the front lower control arm. Depending on how the eccentric cam bolt is positioned I get a clunking. This does add up because the clunking started shortly after I aligned the car for the first time since getting it back on the road. I plan on running less caster now that I have a manual rack. Hopefully this will position the cam lobes straight up and down and get rid of the clunk.

Mike

 

GREAT FEEDBACK! Thanks sounds like a sound conclusion. I have brand new stuff and still have some clunk, pop and sometimes crack....bushings look good,new JICs all good stuff...