Suspension issues
Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:33 pm
I'm hoping someone might be able to explain a little issue I ran into yesterday. This is going to sound retarded and I hope someone can understand it - but I'm not a very technically minded person.
Took my car to get serviced and also get a wheel balance and alignment yesterday as it had been out since copping a pothole/crater a few weeks ago (and also needed redoing since the springs had settled anyway). Prior to taking it in, the car was fine and there were no strange sounds.
I last had it aligned at the same time as I had the new Tein springs put in, and my mechanic got it all as close as he possibly could to stock specifications. It was all fine but he pointed out that there wasn't much room left for adjustment in the cusco camber plates, as the screws were as close to the outside of the car as they could go.
Anyway, took it back to him yesterday and he tried to realign it again now that the springs had settled, and was much happier with the settings he was able to extract as apparently as the springs had settled, the camber plates could now be moved in a little giving him more freedom to do his stuff?? Anyway, the weird thing was that with these new settings, there was a metallic clunking sound coming from the front suspension mainly when turning. He told me to take it for a drive as he thought it was just the springs trying to reseat after being on the hoist, but it didn't go away. After a bit of a look around, he decided to change the bolt positions on the camber plates to see if that made any difference, and after a long drive I couldn't replicate the problem again so I drove back down to Sydney.
Unfortunately, when I was turning full lock to get into my parking position I heard it again, and on my way into work this morning, every time I turned hard left it would make this clunking sound.
I've rung the mechanic and he is extremely dissapointed and wants me to take the car back to him ASAP. Only problem is that I work in Sydney and he is in the blue mountains and I don't want to kill the car before I get it back to him.
Does anyone know what might be going on here, or what the problem might be? Is there an easy way for me to fix it myself before taking it back to be properly redone? Is it easy to adjust the camber plates to another position if that might temporarily fix the problem until it can be redone?
BTW, this mechanic has an alignment system which has actually heard of FTO's! HE can plug in my VIN number and it will spit out stock specifications. (Obviously no point as I assume its the same for all FTOs but impressive none the less)
Took my car to get serviced and also get a wheel balance and alignment yesterday as it had been out since copping a pothole/crater a few weeks ago (and also needed redoing since the springs had settled anyway). Prior to taking it in, the car was fine and there were no strange sounds.
I last had it aligned at the same time as I had the new Tein springs put in, and my mechanic got it all as close as he possibly could to stock specifications. It was all fine but he pointed out that there wasn't much room left for adjustment in the cusco camber plates, as the screws were as close to the outside of the car as they could go.
Anyway, took it back to him yesterday and he tried to realign it again now that the springs had settled, and was much happier with the settings he was able to extract as apparently as the springs had settled, the camber plates could now be moved in a little giving him more freedom to do his stuff?? Anyway, the weird thing was that with these new settings, there was a metallic clunking sound coming from the front suspension mainly when turning. He told me to take it for a drive as he thought it was just the springs trying to reseat after being on the hoist, but it didn't go away. After a bit of a look around, he decided to change the bolt positions on the camber plates to see if that made any difference, and after a long drive I couldn't replicate the problem again so I drove back down to Sydney.
Unfortunately, when I was turning full lock to get into my parking position I heard it again, and on my way into work this morning, every time I turned hard left it would make this clunking sound.
I've rung the mechanic and he is extremely dissapointed and wants me to take the car back to him ASAP. Only problem is that I work in Sydney and he is in the blue mountains and I don't want to kill the car before I get it back to him.
Does anyone know what might be going on here, or what the problem might be? Is there an easy way for me to fix it myself before taking it back to be properly redone? Is it easy to adjust the camber plates to another position if that might temporarily fix the problem until it can be redone?
BTW, this mechanic has an alignment system which has actually heard of FTO's! HE can plug in my VIN number and it will spit out stock specifications. (Obviously no point as I assume its the same for all FTOs but impressive none the less)
