[widetyres]

Hi,

After some advice please re the front strut pinch bolts. I've been trying to track down a rattle on my car for a while, and today replaced them.

I know the torque is 56nm, and I reached that and my torque wrench clicked. However, when I went to double check it, the bolt just carried on tightening further without the wrench clicking. I did ~1 extra turn, then decided that I better stop at the risk of snapping the bolt. I recalled that this happened a while ago as well when I changed the suspension.

Please can you let me know if I should stop at the first torque reached indication, or do I carry on until the wrench is always clicking?

Thanks!

[M Fifty]

Were there any signs of corrosion on the old bolt?

[widetyres]

Originally Posted by M Fifty

Were there any signs of corrosion on the old bolt?

Nut yes, bolt no. It's about two years since I did the suspending change,so not that old really.

I replaced it as I previously didn't do the bolt up at usual ride height and apparently that could cause issues. Replaced and torqued as above it hasn't made any difference to the knocking noise unfortunately. Just wondering if I need to tighten it more?

[allinon72]

Is your torque wrench of good quality and calibrated? In regards to your problem, I doubt this is the source of your rattle unless the bolt was extremely loose. The weight of the car is keeping the strut in the knuckle and on rebound, the unsprung weight is the only thing pulling it down. In the case of a loose strut moving up and down in the knuckle causing a rattle, you'd be able to tell by visible wear marks on the strut body.

[M Fifty]

Noting mine has had some weird noises that turned out to be the bottom balljoint, what happens when you jack the car up and support it (or use a lift) and give it a shake/pry?

[widetyres]

Originally Posted by allinon72

Is your torque wrench of good quality and calibrated? In regards to your problem, I doubt this is the source of your rattle unless the bolt was extremely loose. The weight of the car is keeping the strut in the knuckle and on rebound, the unsprung weight is the only thing pulling it down. In the case of a loose strut moving up and down in the knuckle causing a rattle, you'd be able to tell by visible wear marks on the strut body.

Yeah, the wrench is pretty good, so I don't think that it is that.
TBH, with this, I was clutching at straws and it was a fairly last ditch effort to cure the rattle myself - regardless, it is very tight now.
I did have an issue with clunking when I first changed the suspension, and that was due to a reused pinch bolt; the shock was coming slightly out of the cup on any sizable bump - a new bolt sorted it back then.

Originally Posted by M Fifty

Noting mine has had some weird noises that turned out to be the bottom balljoint, what happens when you jack the car up and support it (or use a lift) and give it a shake/pry?

I had checked it by hand before, but did it again last night with a pry bar - thanks for mentioning it. All of the ball joints and bushings are fine from what I can tell, but I did find that the spring spacer (which sits between the helper and main spring) on my coilovers seems to be able to move a lot more on the rattling side. The coilover wasn't under full tension, so some movement would always be possible, but it seemed to have a lot more movement on one side than the other, and makes a very similar noise to the rattle I hear. i have ordered a new spring spacer - fingers crossed that sorts it, otherwise it will be a shock rebuild.

Cheers!

[chris719]

Originally Posted by widetyres

Yeah, the wrench is pretty good, so I don't think that it is that.
TBH, with this, I was clutching at straws and it was a fairly last ditch effort to cure the rattle myself - regardless, it is very tight now.
I did have an issue with clunking when I first changed the suspension, and that was due to a reused pinch bolt; the shock was coming slightly out of the cup on any sizable bump - a new bolt sorted it back then.

I'm not an expert but your wrench definitely shouldn't click and then allow more tightening of the bolt before it clicks again, unless the threads are binding or something else is going on.