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I'm running Tein HA coilovers on an NA, brilliant setup but now I'm starting to get the rattles. Has anyone had them and cured them here?

Thanks to Pumpn'Go in the pillowball thread for pointing me finally to where it might come from.

At the moment it's a clunk/rattle from the top mount area behind the passenger's seat, with it just starting to appear behind me on the right as well. It only occurs on sharp little bumps and ridges. Seeing that I'm driving on country twisties this week with lots of fixed potholes and corrugations I'm hearing it all the time. Totally drives me mad.

I've checked and tightened every nut, bush, mount throughout the whole rear suspension and subframe, including all the coilover mounts and centre nut. Nothing else is left except somewhere in the top of the coilover itself.

This thread http://tl.acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111165 suggests that it's looseness around the spring tops and you can fix it by wrapping rubber or nylon around them. I simply can't believe that this is a viable cure.

Any better ideas?

When you jack the car up, does the spring become untrapped?

No. still a little bit of compression left. The rattle/clunks happen on the short sharp bumps, like edges of pothole repairs, bitumen joints, expansion joints, slight corrugations, etc when the spring is not fully extended anyway. Big dips and full-on cornering are no problem.

http://www.tein.com/ti/inst/km62u.pdf

Check out these instructions at page 8.

I think what is happening is that the spring seat, sits on one of the \"steps\" in the shaft of the shock, and the \"step\" is a bit longer than the spring seat is thick, so the seat can rattle up and down on small dips.

If that is the case, then I suppose you either live with it, do the spring wrap thing or the proper way to fix it would be to take it all apart, and then shim the spring seat so that it no longer has any freeplay.

But I would think that the freeplay might be deliberate though, so that when you are cranking the spring to change tghe ride height, the top hat can rotate with the spring.

Babs, I think you're getting close. The ride height has been moved up and down a few times recently to get the car onto car transporters. Could have disturbed it from an acquired 'favourite' position.

Has anyone successfully shimmed or otherwise packed these things?

Resurrecting an old problem.
My NA8 runs an old set of Teins. The passenger rear rattles like the car is falling apart. Any easy fixes, or do I have to do the abovementioned?

One fix uses nylon spiral wrap (used for cabling). Just have to get the right diameter.

Babalouie wrote: then I suppose you either live with it ...

Good advice there. I've been living with it for 7 years now. Still haven't really found it. Still the same, no worse.

Tien sell a "silencer rubber" and a spacer spring seat that might help.
http://www.tein.com/online_shop/wrench.html

Perhaps put in a helper spring?

Interesting option with the silencer rubber. Can't really work out what it's meant to do or how to fit it yet. It's already running 150mm 10/7 springs with 95mm helpers.

I'd say it goes at the top of the spring to stop the spring rattling on the top hat and the bottom to stop it rattling on the spring perch.

Clark Rubber probably have something you could adapt to suit.

Phil, I get a click / clunk / rattle noise from my front Tein flex in the pillow joint.

I just drop some engine oil onto the bearing and this eliminates the click for a couple of months before I need to repeat the process.

Maybe worth a try.

Phil, I think Okibi has probably nailed it. We've had the mounts apart a couple of times looking for it and there's just nothing there with any play to give a solid clunk. It's a pretty meaty noise. His Clark Rubber suggestion fits well with my long-term basic principle of developing this whole car as low-cost DIY tinkering job. Because I've had the clunking with different springs, with and without helpers, it's probably the bottom coil. As with Bruce's car, it's only left rear.

I'm not fretting about it, as I said it's been there 7 years. Priority is on getting the engine in tune again after the head re-build to smash lap records again at Wakefield next month.

Why is it always the left rear?
The guy on youtube added the rubber silencers which fixed it for a while, but reckons it's the top shaft (where it's bolted) was moving slightly.
I think it's just a case of packing securely some rubber top and bottom of the spring.
I can't believe the amount of money paid for Teins and you'd get better longetivity and I think ride-quality from the stock combo!

Is $55 from fleabay a good price for a pair of Tein spanners? (yup, they didn't come with the car).