Mazda Protege5 clunk after some front end work...

[cutchemist42]

Ugh, so after fixing one problem, I have another which I'm guessing is based on my work admittedly.

The vehicle is a 2003 Protege5. Over the two weeks I had to fix a camber problem by replacing the strut and steering knuckle.(Car had extreme positive camber to two bent parts, fixed now)

At the same of replacing those parts, I had to replace a sway bar end link (had to cut it off due to rust) and a strut mounting plate/bearing since I noticed the threads were stripped from a prior owner.

Car is clunking only over bumps. Other then that, the car feels normal and sounds normal. Now when I did replace the strut/mounting plate, I could not actually push the new plate fully downwards on the strut. The old strut's mounting plate was in contact with the the upper spring seat. I however was not able to push the new plate as far downwards.

Car also did not have clunking problem before and everything was torqued down to what the FSM manual said.

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

 

[YZF_Eric]

spring might not be fully seated on the strut. Mine does that sometimes and there is a gap between the bottom of the spring and where the spring sits on the strut. Sometimes it makes a clunk sound, but not all the time.

 

[SuperDave456]

Sounds like someone had NTB replace the struts prior to you getting it.
I had this same problem on my Taurus. For YEARS it would clunk periodically while going over speed bumps. I could not get it to repeat it regularly. Neither could any of the Techs at the shop I go to.

Just recently it started doing it regularly, this is after living with the noise for about 3 years. (Note that I had my shocks and struts replaced by NTB about 4 years ago.)

I decided not to mess with it, just started a new job, and took it to my shop. They said that the mount for the strut was properly torqued but that it wasn't positioned properly.

They fixed it, no more noise.

Sounds like you have something a little out of place.

 

[The_Jeff]

Recheck your torque in case something settled. Particularly on the big ole nut in the middle of the strut mount.