front strut clunk on new and warranty parts- I know where but not why

[kamesama980]

front strut clunk (solved)

Here's one for the masses since my educated and experienced brain is coming up blank: My wife's car, '03 P5 auto ~100k. Replaced struts and mounts last summer. KYB gas-a-just struts, moog mounts, OE spring seats and rubbers. Has 10-15k on the parts and the left front strut mount has been clunking, it's been doing so for months but only bad enough for me to find it a month ago: as you turn the wheel, the torrington bearing (between the spring seat and strut mount that gets replaced with the mount) isn't turning. the spring binds up till there's enough force to break friction and pop the spring seat out of alignment and into the strut tower sheet metal going "ka-CHUNK".

Easy one I figured. Took it apart, cleaned, lubed the bearing. no change. called up rockauto and got a new mount (w/ bearing), gone for my 2 mile test drive but the wife's complaining about it when she gets home from work Monday.

Spring is indexed in the mounts and rubbers all lined up at the detents like it should be as far as I can tell. I'm open to ideas as to why the bearing is binding up instead of articulating.

 

[njaremka]

are you 100% sure its the strut bearing and not a sway bar end link? did you replace the end links when you swapped out the struts?

 

[mp5la]

I had a similar problem with a strut mount last summer. I replaced the nearly brand new mount (it was completely shattered when it came out) and the problem got better, but I still had a noticeable clunk. Ended up replacing both nearly brand new endlinks (again...) and the problem went away. Something about the way the front geometry in these cars is set up eats front end components.

 

[kamesama980]

You think I'm going to give that detailed and specific of a description by pulling it out of my back side? Yes I'm sure. I watched it do it while turning the wheel with the car on the lift. Yes, I have a lift in my 24x40 pole barn/garage.

No it isn't the end-links. Aside from having watched it, the noise is still present with them disconnected. Tried that last summer. Plus I did them not too long after the struts because I thought the sub-year-old ones I'd put on were clunking in the first place. As for the frequency of replacement, in my shop and school experience, they've gone to sh** since the industry switched to ball-and-socket end links. They tend to work fine for the warranty period, then make noise for a long while, then pop out. The old bolt and bushings style might not have been as precise and needed replacing more often but they were usually quiet till they failed catastrophically. Gotta love how the marketing dept no-maintenance-required mentality has taken over the world.

le sigh. Again, the problem I can't fix, nobody's ever had, heard of, nor has any idea what to do about lol.

 

[kamesama980]

Figured it out. Take this as a reminder to everyone like me that's too smart and experienced to read the manual: I had the upper spring seat incorrectly aligned. The center is slightly angled where it meets the bearing and the angle was off causing the bearing not to see even pressure. There are five holes in it, 3 are slotted 2 are round (though the slotted ones are only about twice as long as they are wide so it won't catch your eye if you aren't looking for it). The 2 round holes should point to the outside of the car. Fixed that, no more noise.