Strut install-front klunk

Just installed my KYB AGX struts and am noticing a clunking noise in both front sturts.

I just now noticed that I did not use the bottom cup rubber insert from the oem struts on the KYB's so there is no bumper on the bottom cup. Could this be the noise I am hearing? Is anyone running front struts with no bumer on the lower cup/perch? Any noise?

Thanks for the help. Might have to pull the fronts off and redo I guess.

*edit
I also noticed that the rears do not have a rubber perch insert on the lower cup and I do not notice any clunking in the rear.

 

I would pull the front of and fix that anyways.

Sways and everything hooked up correctly?

 

I think for my piece of mind I want to start with putting the rubber in. Sucks having to do it myself now though.

I didn't touch the sways so I imagine they should be fine. Or as far as I know.

 

um.. checkt he tightness of the center nut on the strut.. now with load on the wheels, that pushes the rod up further and as the car bounces it could be slapping.. (dont ask me how I know) ha ha did that once...

basically.. open the hood.. bounce the front end and watch that nut and see if it gets a gap at all...

also that bump stop wont cause a clunk if its missing... and doesnt necessarily need to be there... but it is nice to have...

 

The top nuts are tight. I tightened those down when the struts were installed and the car was back on the ground. So i'm sure about those.

The bump stops are installed. Its the rubber perch that the bottom of the spring sits on that is missing.

Thanks for the help everyone

 

HAHA yea ive never done that before, But its a great spot to start

 

I just checked the top strut nut while bouncing the car and saw no movment or gap under the nut.

Does anyone happen to have AGX's with prodrive springs installed that could possibly throw a pick up that shows a close up of the top assembley so I can see how far down their nut is?

Thanks

 

Not much to that set-up. strut, rubber insert on cap, then washer, then tophat, then nut. Do you remember putting in the washer correctly? Also make sure the top of the strut is assembled correctly. (lined up). I'll try to find ya a pic.

 

Yup, washer in correctly with small side up. Top perch lined up correctly as well.

The only thing that I could think it would be is that dang rubber ring that sits in the bottom perch. Guess its time to take the fronts off again.

As for lining up the top perch from the diagram I have it should look like /----/

If the top hat is lined up incorrectly it'd look like \----/

Hope my super sweet diagrams above make perfect sense ;-)

 

yup, now go throw that rubber bumper back in there.

 

got the fronts off but then realized i forgot to put the bottom rubber on the rears not the fronts. so the fronts didn't have the rubber at the bottom from the get go.

but I did notice that the top hats on the fronts seem to tilt a little aside from being able to spin freely. Is that how they should be or should they not be able to tilt at all?

Also the threads on the KYBs seem to be a bit different than what was on the oem. Anyone else noticed this?

Not sure what to do at this point

 

tilt?? there appears to be tilt but it is in cant think of the word, but it's design to sit flat when the strut is installed and has angle... kinda hard to word out... you may have it twisted off a little maybe???

was gonna say the fronts I have installed in the past never had the rubber under the spring... maybe cause there is more wight and less chance of ounce like in the lighter rear end...

 

Got it!

The top hat just wasn't sitting right and wasn't allowing me to tighten the top bolt as tight as it needed to be. WRXboy you da man! Pending a test drive that'll happen very soon here but I have faith.

The rears didn't sound all that bad but I suppose its probably a good idea to put that rubber under the springs in the rear eh?

Its amazing how fast struts can go when all the nuts have been taken off the day before.

Thanks everyone for the quick help on this. I'll keep ya'll posted as how the test drive goes.

 

My struts don't have any rubber on the lower spring seats, and they're fine for about two years now, so I wouldn't bother.

 

yea i forgot to put the rubber spring perches on my rear struts when i changed them out too, it squeeked bad so i put them back in the next day.

 

It took me all of 30 mintues to get the front up and struts pulled so I think I might just pull the rears tomorrow and put the rubber in and be done with it.

The drive feels much more solid than it did with the oem/prodrive setup. However i'm not sure if the ride height is the same. It looks as if it might have raised a tiny bit. Not back to stock at all but just not as low. Anyone else notice this as well when going with a prodrive/stock setup to a prodrive/AGX setup?

Thanks again all

 

KYB's Installed!

Took the rears out yesterday to get the rubber on the lower perch installed and after the drive in the slop here to work all feels nice and solid.

Had it set at 2 in the front and 2 in the rear but was getting bounced around quite a bit on our current chewed up roads so I adjusted the fronts to 1 and its a nice smooth ride. I'll set it back to 2 when the roads smooth out a bit. Glad there's a noticable difference in each of the settings.

Can't imagine what setting 4 feels like if 2 felt fairly stiff to me.

Thanks goes out to Illegal for the strut hookup