So, last week I noticed that I had a crack on one of the strut mounts. I ordered a set of Ireland Engineering fixed camber plates to replace the stock mounts with something a bit beefier. So I received the plates on thursday and installed them on friday. I managed to get into my buddy's shop and the install went pretty well. I didn't have to do anything besides lift the car and disconnect the strut from the mount and I managed to just slide the old mount out and put the new one in with disconnecting everything else. So I really didn't do much along the line of removing anything. After the install, I noticed the alignment felt way off. Seemed like if I turned the wheel far left, it'd pull to the left, and then if I turned far right, it'd pull to the right. So i went and had an alignment done on saturday as everyone told me to do, and it still seemed to have the same problem. It definitely felt better than before I had the alignment done, but something else must be amidst here. This morning when I was backing out of my driveway, I noticed a very distinct "ca -clunk" from the front end. I was backing straight out when I heard the sound. And on my way to work on the highway the front end felt very, very loose. Almost like when you're driving and a big gust of wind comes by and blows the car around, and then the car would start pulling to the other side. I did notice a slight shimmy when driving on the highway before this, and now this is really, really bad. When I replaced the mounts with the new camber plates, I only disconnected the strut from the mount and managed to slide the old plate out and slide the new one in without much hassle and I didn't have to take the whole thing out or even compress the springs. So I didn't unbolt much and everything was torqued down when it put everything together again. So what could be the problem here??? I don't feel safe driving it on the highway now.
So you never unbolted the strut from the steering knuckle? Sounds like you saved a little work by not pulling the struts off the car, but that's coming back to bite you. I'd recommend pulling the struts. The springs could be unseated from their perches, or the top nut may not be torqued down all the way. Did the alignment shop tell you what the final front camber / caster was? Also, did you check to make sure you installed the plates on the correct side? There's a distinct L and R orientation.
Time for some MORE front end work. Start with the work you did. This time do it right. Pull the struts off the car. It doesn't take much work. Check to make sure the top nut on the strut is torques properly and that the spring is well seated in the perches. Check ball joints ant tie rod ends. It sound like something is loose and shouldn't be too hard to find. How arenyour control arm bushings? Also check your wheel hubs. Also, was it a good alignment shop? If something was loose or it was hard to get a good setting that would hold, a good shop would have told you. A quick and dirty might not say anything and just go through the motions and then swipe your credit card and send you on your way. Matt
Check to see if there is contact between the spring and rib on the driver's side while you're looking at things.
Yeah I only had a limited amount of time to work with unfortunately so I didn't have to time to take the struts out. And I believe I put the camber plates in right. They didn't have a left or right marking on them so I matched them up to the one that looked the same. Maybe I could have possibly put them in on the wrong sides, but if I did, would that cause this problem? I have a sheet from the alignment. I have a picture of it. Sorry about the quality, I had to take a bunch of pictures and merge them together so you can read the numbers. I don't have access to a scanner right now.
and i just noticed the paper says the right rear toe adjustment was maxed out. i don't know why that would be like that. never had any issues with the rear end before and my car's never been in an accident. never hit any curbs or anything either.i won't even get a chance to look at my car until saturday since i'm working almost 70 hours this week.
i'm starting to wondering if the wheel bearing might be shot and the new camber and alignment is showing it now. i do have 114k miles on it and i don't know if they've ever been replaced. i bought the car used with 80k miles on it. i'm just wondering what would be the way to check everything without pulling everything apart, if it's possible. i just don't have time to take everything apart right now unfortunately. and if there's something wrong that i need to replace i'd like to order it so it gets here by friday so i don't have to wait another week to install it.
I would look at two things first. 1. Maybe the top strut bolt did not screw all the way down, even though it torqued up correctly such as it might have bound up a little on a damaged thread. This would leave the spring a little loose. You can grab the spring and tug on it to see if it rattles a little. 2. The spring or top perch could be hitting the wheel well as shown in post 5 above. I had to pound the rib with a hammer to provide a little clearance. Also, as you stated the rear toe is way off. I would think you would want close to zero. I would ask the alignment shop to adjust the rear toe if you paid for a full 4-wheel alignment. It is a pain to adjust so they might not have tried very hard other than to just get it into spec.
The actual and before measurements on the front don't jive, but the before could have been measured after the install. I would get clarification on that. There should have been at least an increase of -1 degree, not .1 reduction. When looking at the top strut nut through the opening in the strut tower, it should be closer to the engine in relation to the opening.
i have 3 videos of it i just uploaded. there is a lot of distortion but you can here the sound of what i'm hearing in the background bass. it's kinda like a "woah-woah-woah-woah" sound. you'll see a few times i hold in the clutch and you can hear it better then. the first video you caan hear it all right. the second video about 3:45 into it you can hear it pretty well. and the 3rd video i'm going slower and you can hear it too. you'll notice it isn't quite as fast as the other 2 videos. and at the end of the 3rd video i'm taking an exit off the highway and you'll hear stuff if my car rattling a lot, so that's not the sound of what is going on, lol. you'll see me correcting the steering wheel a lot. i was on a straight section of highway where i wouldn't need to be correcting the wheel at all. again, there's a lot of distortion and if you listen on a laptop, you'll have to listen VERY carefully. if you have a speaker system, you should be able to here in the back ground bass. it'll be the only consistent sound in the background that you can pick out of the distortion. hopefully this will help out. i'll try to get another video of the steering problem when i cut the wheel and straighten it out. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42m0piOVfPM"]Video 1[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrhQCVK-Pcg"]Video 2[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q6rhCRqhk0"]Video 3[/ame]
as far at the measurements go, they were after the install. my buddy's shop doesn't have an alignment machine. he just has a lift so he let me use it on friday night, i kept him late there by doing so too. so i had to take it to a shop that had one and they spent over an hour working on it so i'm assuming they had some trouble doing it all.
I couldn't play your video........ So is the noise coming from the front or rear? Are you sure all your suspension bushings are OK?
sorry about them being listed as private. i must have checked the wrong setting on the video upload. i just changed them so they should work now without a problem.
the sound is coming from the front. as for what side i'm hesitant to say because it's tough to tell when you're not sitting in the middle of the car. it definitely sounds like it's coming from the front of the car though.
Since you are in Lowell....do you have the time to drop into (508) 754-7327 Greasy’s Garage 143A Hamilton Street Worcester, MA 01604 They do tons of work on MINI's in MA. (for drivers on MA, NH, VT, CT, RI and Maine too!!)..heck last time I asked, they were maintaining 200+ MINI's on a regular basis, + the drop-ins.... they have been open under 2 years (a few months in their new location, but the owner once did tons of work on MINI's for Mass motoring club folks where he worked, and he decided it was time to open his own shop). It is not a hi-tech fancy shop, just a good honest shop, that works on tons of MINI's....3 lifts, but usually just 2 Mechanics, and the office guy.....good prices, and they stock MANY mini items for same day service!! They do not have an alighnment rack, but have a place around the corner that does it for them. They might have some ideas....John will usually answer the phone, Pete is the MINI guy. If it is thunking....I would double check your work, then if it still is, get a second set of eyes on it asap!!
yeah the problem is i work 70+ hours a week normally and only have saturdays to really do anything. and that time is usually spent with my girlfriend and my friends so it's tough to juggle this stuff. and not having a (working) backup car really doesn't help much. i can't just drop it off and let someone work on it for me. nor do i really have that much to spend either. car payments and other bills really end up kicking you when you're down
so new developments on the problem. i managed to get a chance to look at the struts before leaving for work this morning and notice the drivers side was leaning in more than the passenger side. i took some pics of them but i don't know how well you can see it. i'll have to try and get a ruler and take an angled shot of it. here they are though. driver's side strut: passenger side strut: