Help!! suspension is clunking?

[yoogene83]

Ok guys, i took my car to a shop to do my suspension install and since then it's been nothing but problems. i had a really bad grinding noise coming from my front drivers side and i had them grease it down to get rid of the noise, but another issue arose.

Apparently my front passenger side bump-stop had split, so i had to get it replaced. simple enough, i got the part and had them install it. HOWEVER, there is now a clunking sound coming from this side of the suspension. i fear that it may be a control arm or tie rod end that may have possibly broken when they put the car back on the ground. I am extremely pissed at this shop and i would have them fix it, but i'm afraid they're going to cause more problems than anything else.

I'd appreciate any input you guys have as i'm taking it to the auto-hobby shop on base again tomorrow to check out what's going on myself.

TIA, Eugene

[foofighter]

well one of the problem could be...

they didnnt tighten down the nut to the shock shaft till it bottomed out. so in turn it is moving up and down in the assembly. took my friend and i 4 removals to finally figure it out and by then bout 2-3 threads were worn because of the abrasion.

and this is the nut in question...

[yoogene83]

thanks Foo, how would i go about fixing this? should i just jack up the car and just torque on the nut till i can get it tighter from the hood? or do i need to remove the assembly all together again to have it tightened?

[foofighter]

iirc you have to remove the entire assembly to get at the nut...that's the crappy thing about it...if you can do it at home use a pair of vise grip hold a long allen wrench into the middle of the shock shaft and then another vice grip holding a short socket as pictured.

then you hold the allen in place while you tighten down on the nut w/ the other till it bottoms out and can go anymore. you'll need to compress the springs though



oh another thing...i found this out on my last B5 A4 the lower shock mount nut should be tightened all the way otherwise when you turn the wheel from a forward movement to a reverse you'll get a clunk as well.

but for now visually inspect your linkages to see if there's any visible damage and then start taking things apart.

[yoogene83]

aaayyyy. that looks like crap dude. uggghhhh

thanks for the tips though

[yoogene83]

oh ya, is there a lot of probable damage by driving like this? i need to go to somebody's place to probably do this, and i'm skeptical about driving distances with this right now

[foofighter]

get it looked at sooner rather than later...

[Saturnine]

You'd know if your tierod was busted

[yoogene83]

how so? would i not be able to steer? sorry for noob questions

[Saturnine]

Yeah, you wouldnt be able to drive..

The tierod is what keeps the wheel staying flush with the fender. If you snap that, your wheel/hub assembly will just flop around --> Aka your wheel will be jammed up into the fender well

[yoogene83]

ahhh, thanks.

[hyperspeed]

are u clunking only on hard turns? or.. when ur driving straight? i have the same issue with my neuspeed and i know lots of others do as well when making hard u turns. they said it was normal when i called in. so eh?

[yoogene83]

it actually never happened before until my most recent visit to this shop. and it's only when i go over bumps in the road, i'm taking things carefully for now as i'm scared enough about further damage to the suspension

[yoogene83]

Thanks Foo, for letting me know about this. i finally got it back to the shop today and they tried to deny any wrong, but after i claimed that the nut wasn't tightened, they got an impact drill and tightened it another 1 inch down. REDONKULOUS!! anyways, the sound is now gone and i'm happy now...hopefully i won't have to go to this shop anymore since i watched them take apart my suspension so i can do it myself next time

[foofighter]

sweeeet!!! I'm glad they fixed it! Dont they look like fools now?!?! my advice to you is not to come back there again my friend. I tell ya some places give off the impression that they know what they're doing but they couldn't turn a wrench if their life depended on it...scary huh?