feejap

Hi there,
One more problem with my car (1998 UCF21 LS400). Just had the tie-rods replaced (both sides). Car is lowered on coilovers.

Problem is, and this only happens to the right front, is that when the car hits a pothole or a bump of some kind, it sounds likes the shock has bottomed out or something has hit against something else.. I can actually feel the chassis shake or hit something. My mechanic assures me it's nothing to do with bushings as he checked all, and tested the balljoints etc for play.

Funny thing is, I first thought the shock keeps bottoming out because of how low the car is, so I adjusted the shock to be much harder, but the noise is still present. In fact, the harder it is, the more frequent the noise. This means that the noise isn't actually the shock bottoming out, if I am not mistaken...

Any ideas?
Cheers

TCM

Check the sway bar bushing where it goes thru the frame on that side. If the bushing is gone it will bang like crazy on every bump in the road as the bar sticks thru a hole drilled in the frame rail.

feejap

Thanks for the reply, but forgot to say, it didn't do that before the lowering.. And it is less severe when the coilovers are set to the softest setting. Any thoughts?

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

1-check to make sure that the upper control arm/ball joint arent hitting the strut tower.
2-strut rod bushings.

feejap

Cheers mate.
Had a day-off today so brought the car to the mechanic again. Tracked it down to the coilovers bottoming out. Turns out the JIC coilovers has 2 ways of adjusting the ride height.. One to do with the spring and the other with the shocker itself.. (I struggle to understand it but that's what the mechanic told me) Mechanic said the shocker had very little travel, so he adjusted it, and now it doesn't bottom out unless it's a huge bump.. Still, I will bring the car back to adjust it for even longer travel. I hate the shake in the chassis when the shock bottoms out.

Yet, frankly, why the shock bottoms out more often when it is set to harder settings, is beyond me

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

because the shock damping (stiffness) is only going to work when the piston has room to travel. if you lowered the car using spring preload instead of the shock mount (lower) then you'd basically decrease the amount of available suspension travel.