curls

I'm getting a low (tone) clunk noise, like a knock, coming from what seems to be the rear passenger side of the car whenever I go over uneven roads, small holes/cracks in the road, or even the transision curbs leading into parking lots, etc.

I've checked the rear sway bar and re-torqued everything to do this the sway bar, and ensured the endlinks were OK. Problem still persists.

What else could be causing this problem, and how do I check/verify? As far as I can tell, everything in the rear of the car is tight and proper. Maybe it's a spot-weld that's popping -- in the trunk crossbrace area?

moda_way

I've got this issue too after I injected more lithium grease in the zerk fitted bushings. This is very typical if the endlinks aren't tight. Only way is to loosen one side and then move the bar around. Because my endlinks are so rusted, I'm just living with it. My knock is on the driver's side.

If the pop were coming from the rear deck speaker area, I'd say yeah, but your description doesn't elude to specific area.

curls

I've tightened the endlinks to the point where if I tighten them a smidge more, something will probably give (in a bad way). I'm world renowned for overtorquing things... which is why I use a torque wrench now, but one can't easily be used on the endlings, unfortunately.

If I were to get udner there, loosen the D-brackets for the swaybar, and then loosen both endlinks, slide the bar around a bit, and then tighten everything back up -- will that help? I can't see how it would, to be honest, since that's almost exactly what I did a few weeks ago (although I didn't loosen the endlinks first, I just inspected them, then re-torqued the D-brackets after loosening them some).

Last time I greased the bushings was in late fall / early winter -- probably around late November. No creaking over bumps, so there's likely still enough grease there. FWIW, I'm using the black Energy Suspension bushings.

moda_way

Yeah, you could do the D brackets again, but then you could move the bar left and right perpendicular to the side of the car. That has always generated noise if the endlinks were looks. I'm on the ES black bushings too, just the ones with zerk fittings.

curls

So you'll actually hear the noise when moving the bar L/R by hand? Wow.

Although I am sure the endlinks are TIGHT... that was less than 4 weeks ago that I tightened everything under there... and the noise was happening well before then.

curls

I just glanced at soem of the 'related threads' at the bottom, and this one is worth a try:
https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35292

Basically, tighten the control arms. I'll re-torque them this weekend, see if that helps. Hell I might just re-torque the entire rear suspension while I'm there.

LukeaTron

I've found when trying to diagnose these problems you can sometimes reproduce them with the car up on jack stands and using the jack to compress and release the suspension of the wheel in question. Makes it a lot easier to pinpoint the source of the sound but it doesn't always work.