knock knock knock said my springs:(

[civicracer1128]

well heres the thing. a friend of mine did my spring install today and im very happy with the results. problem is....front driver side spring makes a knocking sound. its seated correctly and everything is tightened down. its nothing serious and he said not to worry.(i trust him cause hes been a mechanic for 5-6 years now.) however im looking for a cure. i think it just needs a good lube.....let me explain a little bit more.....


knocks when i turn the wheel all the way t o the left and once in a while when i hit i bump. its definiltey the spring becuase we checked it and you can tell from the noise it makes. i also am sure its a lube issue cause i sprayed it good at the car wash and the knock was gone till the suspension dried. can i lube it without removing the spring???????im not familiar with suspension lubes.(we didnt use any during install and it doesnt seem to matter on the other springs. any ideas?????????????????????



other then that i love the springs...tein s tech. good drop and good ride(didnt even cut the bump stops).

[rs_1101]

thats a chronic problem with stechs. what it is is the spring changing its seating in the front strut. not much u can do about it... other than lube it weekly. mine used to do that but not lately.

[Peking]

I had the same problem, it isn't the springs or the install. Your are right, it is the lube. Do you remember the plate with the circular piece, it should rotate with little force. You need to take the strut housing out again. Compress the springs, then use a lithium greese where you see the weak green OEM greese. Then tighten everything up. You should be straight.

[civicracer1128]

damn, didnt know it was such a problem. its not bad though....not at all. the car drives fine. ill see what i can do about getting the whole thing apart again. can i grease it without taking it apart??? i had a friend do it at the dealer that he works at and i doubt hes gonna wanna take em apart every week.


but thanks for the info. i love the drop and the ride is really nice....i cant believe i "forgot" to trim the bump stops and it didnt even matter. guess im too used to ek's with more aggressive drops. guess ill just lube it up....guessing if its a weekly thing its easy to do. i used to lube my DV weekly with my jetta.(dv is diverter valve...same as blow off but reroutes to avoid alot of codes and cels.)anyway, glad to know im not hurting anything....i know its not but im a worryer.

[chubbychu]

yea..dont worry my suspension is off the freaking walls. it knocks and creaks and squeaks and is driving me insane, im having a friend help me take it apart and lube\isolate everything.

[civicracer1128]

yeah, mines not too bad just the one corner is giving me issues. ive seen em before. when i did coils on my 99 it did the same thing. i just wanna know if i can lube it without taking everything apart. i rinsed at the carwash and it went away while the suspension was wet. but thats a sign that it can be done....just afraid grease wont get in there enough. maybe a spray lube????????? we tried wd40 but that ditn do it. any other options??????????

[rs_1101]

i think you can do it w.o taking everything apart. jack up the front of the car enough to get the strut tower to unscrew.. maybe u can work like that w/o removing the strut entirely.

[BISDAK-R]

yup, i know exactly what your problem is because my car has the same problem. Its the little black two piece ring that sits on top of the spring that is suppose to glide a long each other when the car is turning, what's happening is those pieces are not gliding causing the spring to twist and making a poping sound, you could either have missed it and not put the piece back or you could have the piece in there but its making that sound in that case the piece is already blown and your gona need a new one, honda has it at 20 a piece, good luck..

[civicracer1128]

thanks for the info, i was thinking it was the brown piece at the bottom making the noise....ill check it out tomorrow and see what i can do. i know it was reused. maybe ill lube it up and see what effect that has. thanks people!!!!!!:)

[chubbychu]

Originally posted by BISDAK-R
yup, i know exactly what your problem is because my car has the same problem. Its the little black two piece ring that sits on top of the spring that is suppose to glide a long each other when the car is turning, what's happening is those pieces are not gliding causing the spring to twist and making a poping sound, you could either have missed it and not put the piece back or you could have the piece in there but its making that sound in that case the piece is already blown and your gona need a new one, honda has it at 20 a piece, good luck..

can you give me more info on this gliding piece?

[civicracer1128]

me too.

[DeadMonkey]

Are you sure that your friend 1)indexed everything properly and 2)didn't overtorque the strut bearings when he was reinstalling the struts? He didn't use airtools by any chance, did he?

[civicracer1128]

he did in fact use air tools. however im sure it is a lube issue as when i soaped and wetted the suspension good the knock dissapeared completely.

[DeadMonkey]

I've seen this a number of times before. It really sounds like your strut bearings are overtorqued, and when this happens it doesn't allow the struts and springs to turn in conjunction with each other, hence the spring making a knocking/popping sound. This is really typical when someone takes a shortcut and uses airtools. If you're sure that everything's indexed correctly, then just try loosening everything and then torque everything back to factory spec with a torque wrench. Remember, it's possible to tighten things down too much. ;)

[02SilverSiHB]

I know this might not be it, but also, check your dust cover..it might be rubbing up top and creating that sound...

[civicracer1128]

yeah, im still not exactly sure what it is but i think its the lube on the top of the spring. i say that cause i washed my car again yesterday and as long as it was wet...the noise was GONE. then it dried, came back again. i think if it was overtorquing or anything like that....water of all things wouldnt be my #1 cure so far. problem is that water dries. however synthetic grease doesnt....now i just need to get the grease where the water was. im also pretty sure its not the dustcover. i say that cause the knock has a slight "gong" that you can hear just a little bit that usually points toward the spring.

but heres my plan for my first attempt at eliminating it......

jack up car and remove wheel. see if hand fits up to where the spring touches the rubber thing at the top.(id think it would as our front springs are huge.) rub synthetic greas around where the spring touches all the other stuff at the top and turn wheel to see if it works any grease in where it needs to be. im trying to not take it apart if i can. its only 20 degrees out and i dotn have all the tools.

[civicracer1128]

ok, so im new to all this as you know so i went to hondaautomotiveparts.com and clicked front shock absorber. it shows all the componants and i can kinda see whats goin on now. the strut bearing thing makes sense for sure. but then again every single setup ive had before has been installed with air tools and no issues. but then again ive only done this 4 times before on other cars so that doesnt really rule that out by any means. ill let you all know waht it is when i figure it out but even now that i know what the bearing does it still manages to turn fine when its wet or warmer outside. so im gonna see if i can grease it first and then go with the take it apart and redo it approach.