I changed almost all my bushings and pillowballs in the rear and I still have a clunk.

I checked the swaybar endlinks and they are still nice and stiff/smooth.. no play whatsoever.

I will be replacing the diff mounts tomorrow with some Mazdaspeed ones. I believe I have stock ones in there, and the car has 100k+ on it - they gotta be toast.

Anyway, I was trying to watch the rear while I was driving (on a deserted bumpy road) to see if I could pinpoint where the clunk is coming from, and I can't (at least not from the driver's seat).

However, what I did notice is that I can SEE the passenger rear shock rod move up and down over bumps. I have the interior out of the rear right now as I isolate noises. I have Koni Yellows and Eibach Prokits.

Is this the sign of a bad shock mount? I can see the shock rod move up and down about 1/8-1/4" over big bumps while the rest stays still. The shock tower bolts are tight and the studs that go through them don't move at all when the rod is moving.

I'm an FD newb, so before I spend $140 on new shock mounts, I wanted to make sure this wasn't normal play for the stock rubber shock mount.

Anyone?

 

That is a sign that the upper mount/nut was not tightened sufficiently over the spring. Same thing happened to me on another car. Try some blue thread locker to help prevent the issue

 

Are we talking about the bottom nut that secures the strut mount to the shock itself, or the nut that's above that that locks that rubber disc that sits above the shock tower, down to the shock tower itself.

I didn't install these Koni's, and I'm really not sure what that rubber disc (about 2" ind dia) that's above the strut tower does... it doesn't sit on the strut tower... just kinda floats there between the bottom nut that secures the upper mount on the shock, and the top nut..

 

The more I think about it, the more this seems like the problem. I had the shock/spring assemblies out and didn't notice anything wierd, but I suppose I wouldn't, since the spring would expand and take up any of the slack that the loose nut might give up when under the car's load.

I had to flip the lower spring perch on my driver's side (PO installed it upside down), and I'm certain I tightenned that one properly... no wierd noises from that side. I didn't take the passenger side apart, but I definitely will now.

It seems my hatch makes all sorts of noises too.. hard to isolate.

Anyway, can anyone tell me what this part of the shock assembly does?



The strut mount studs secure the the assembly to the shock tower. With my Koni/Prokit setup, this rubber "isolator" doesn't even touch anything on the body. Why is it even there? And when installed, should the cup shape be dished up ward or downward? It looks upwards in the picture, but installed that way, the thing when secured between the shock mount nut and the upper nut, just floats there in the middle of the hole....

 

boostd4- I have a similar setup on my Koni coilovers. Sounds like the upper mounting nut is not tight, like gracer7-rx7 suggests. I would hold off on the thread locker. If you ever have to loosen the nut to take the shock off the car, the only place to hold the shock rod from turning are the two flats on the top of the rod. If the nut is difficult to remove, you may have a problem. I recently spent two hours with a dremel and cut-off disc to cut off the nut which had frozen and would not come off.