rocketman4321

I replaced my front factory shocks with Bilstein HDs, and now I'm trying to chase down a clunk on the left side on bumps. Hard to tell, but I think its happening on the extension stroke. I've checked the torque on every thing I could reach, and tried jacking under the control arm and looking and feeling for play. Nothing. The 3 bolts in the engine compartment are tight and the sway bar shows no play at the mount. Of course I can't see the top of the shock, but I'm sure I torqued it--and the spring's under compression even at full stroke, so there should be preload on the rod and hardware. Any ideas?

VONBOTTLE

Check the steering rack bolt on the drivers side.....most times the passenger side one comes loose - luckily the driver side is in plain site whereas the passenger side is under the battery.....this may not be the cause, but easy to check. After i recently replaced my suspension components, my passenger side bolt came loose - it made an annoying clunking sound even my mechanic couldn't figure out, then i found a thread on AW about the same problem and was able to fix it myself thank god

2.7Lturbo

vonbottle THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! if this is the source of my clunk rattle im going to send you a keg of beer

rocketman4321

Thanks--I'll give that a check. I don't think I touched it, but maybe the stiffer shocks are just exciting it more.

SloopJohnB@mac.com

It is possibly the upper shock mount? When I replaced my shocks on the 2K4.2 the rear upper shock mounts went in less than 3-4K miles. The rod nut was banging on the aluminum mount when the rubber died. Maybe the fronts went on yours?

I used Koni sport shocks.

02 Silver Arrow

This is what I found with mine, the upper shock bolts can loose after sttling in or I just didn't tighten enough on install

SloopJohnB@mac.com

Yes...and blue loctite should be used as well! Red is tougher to remove, ok I guess, since the bolts are easily removed/accessed with an impact wrench.

NOT on the upper shock rod nut, or Jesus nut. Just on the 3 bracket mounting bolts and on the upper mount bolts (two) that hold the mount to the bracket that holds the UCAs.

The loctite will also result in a higher clamping force since the loctite lubricates the threads.
But I use the same torque specification as Audi.

rocketman4321

That seemed the obvious place to look to me to, but all three bolts in the engine compartment are tight and the two at the top of the shock assembly seem OK (could just get an open-end wrench on them in place) and the threads protrude equally through the plate.

SloopJohnB@mac.com

WEll. there's always the ever elusive rack bolt hidden under the battery box/shelf.

You have to pull the battery and the shelf to get to the bolt.

STFA.

69gaugeman

I had a clunk on mine and it was the sway bar bushings. 5$ item and super easy to replace. Happened when going over speedbumps and other associated bumps. YMMV