Rx8 - Mysterious suspension rattling
So in a previous post I happily wrote about how I changed the Rx8 suspension and maybe I made it sounds easier than it was… Truth be told it was easy but I overlooked a small detail: four small but very annoying bolts.
After installing the new suspension, I took my baby for a test drive and oh horror! it was rattling. A lot. Every pothole or uneven place I hit, my car was emitting a distinct and annoying metallic rattling. Horrified me went back to my place and started brainstorming potential issues. Sadly I couldn‘t go back to the workshop because it was closed for the holidays so I was left -again- with my indoor parking spot, some tools and lots of enthusiasm to find and fix the problem. I checked all the exterior bolts, jacked the car up, checked some more bolts and everything I touched during the suspension change, but everything was tight and snug. I took the Rx8 out again, tested her handling carefully, but she drove just fine except for that stupid noise. It drove me mad.
In my despair I reached out to a mechanic friend and asked him to take a look. He took a ride with me, listened and started grinning. Back in his shop he took out the rear suspension and asked me, if I countered the upper bolt with a hex key while tightening it. Ehm what?! Turns out miss I-put-installation-paste-on-everything put on too much paste on the thread and did not realize the bolt had an inlay for that damn hex key. So that one tiny bolt was too lose on every suspension, giving the inner metallic discs room to clatter. Damn me!
I‘m happy I did not screw up the install as such, but it still hurts to have overlooked such an important detail. While tightening up the bolts I did massively screw up another part though… While putting back the front strut bar I was overly motivated and broke off one of the bolts holding it on to the chassis. Damn me again! Luckily replacing that part was an easy fix too and now my baby is whole again!
Teaches me to work with even more focus!
Again thanks for reading and feel free to ask me questions or give feedback via the contact form!