soft top creaking noise when going over driveway humps

kurumasen · Postby **kurumasen** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:09 pm

I've been hearing this creaking noise near the top of my windscreen/soft top area as the car goes over the dip and hump in my driveway when I drive in at an angle. Pretty sure its body flex related as one wheel goes on and gets raised by the bump and the other follows.

Has anyone come across this as well? Was just wondering if there was anything I can do to stiffen the body up so that it would go away (strut tower/to firewall brace). A hardtop is in the pipeline but pretty low on my priority list right now. Would the extra stiffness provided by the hardtop mitigate this somewhat? I have aftermarket swaybars and coilovers if that helps.

Cheers

Postby **NitroDann** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:12 pm

There are no braces that you will fit to your car that will change this at all.

Hardtops do not add any stiffness that is even measurable by mazda.

Dann

BadBong · Postby **BadBong** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:53 pm

Not quite sure i would completely agree with you on this one Dann.

I used to get the same noise when I drive my car up the driveway diagonally to avoid scraping the bottom and this no longer existed after I fitted the Flyin Miata Butterfly Brace.

As with the hard top, it actually made the noise even worse (pre-brace). It would make a noise that I'd thought the hard top clamps have broken off...

Postby **NitroDann** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:56 pm

So now its up to the OP to buy and fit a butterfly brace to prove me wrong.

LOL
Dann

mazdarati · Postby **mazdarati** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:07 pm

I've heard fender braces do a decent job minimising body flex, have yet to fit some though so no first hand experience

93_Clubman · Postby **93_Clubman** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 12:22 pm

Yeah, fitting an HT won't make that noise go away, & as BB mentioned it's probably more noticeable with HT fitted.

RJ45 · Postby **RJ45** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:50 pm

Are you sure it's not loose soft top latches causing the noise?

Shambler · Postby **Shambler** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:32 am

I actually had this in my NB8A, fitting just the frame rails (no butterfly brace) cleared it up for me!

kurumasen · Postby **kurumasen** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:42 pm

I've nipped up the adjuster in my soft top latches a tad to tighten up the clamping and it seems to have done the trick! However, I'm still mindful of the fact that even if it doesn't make much noise there's still the body flex, I might look into getting a frame rail too.