Suspension oddity

[Asiah119]

I'm running pss10, Turner camber arms rod end, delrin subframe bushings, and solid everything else with a 3 clutch lsd.

Ive had some clunking and road noise which I've just attributed to the solid bushings. I had the LR wheel bearing replaced because there was some play. That hasn't changed the noise.

Lately the noise has increased on rough roads, heavy clunking. Then today I noticed that the RR is about 1/4" lower than LR. I pulled the wheels off. Ride height adjustments are at the same level. Camber arms, trailing arms, etc are all secure.

Thoughts on what's causing the ride height difference?

Edit: subframe reinforcements were installed w the bushings

[ZHPizza]

Rear strut mount?

[Sockethead]

That would be my guess too... upper shock mount may have punched through.

[Asiah119]

I'll check the topside tomorrow, but from the bottom. The shock mount looked normal. Pulling that trunk molding out is always an adventure.

[danewilson77]

I'll be honest and say 1/4" in ride height isn't hugely unheard of. Do you know there was no delta prior to?

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[nsk040]

Broken spring, perhaps? Can you upload a video of the noise? You could disconnect the bar and see if the noise remains to start ruling things out.

[Asiah119]

Dane, I don't know where the sheet that had the alignment and ride height went but it was corner balanced with approx my my weight in the drivers seat. I know that lr and rr were essentially the same when we corner balanced because the initial setting was significantly low; about where rr is sitting currently. Also with the spring height adjustments having the same number of threads showing they should be closer than they are.

I'm lazy so didn't lift the car again but I did pull back the trunk molding and the shock mounts look good. Pulling and pushing on the body didn't yield any movement in the shock mounts. Also there wasn't any motion in the subframe from lifting the rear of the car and setting it on stands.

No noticeable play in the wheel assembly. Springs are tight in their perches.

The sound, as best I can describe until I get some audio, is what you usually get from an old hoopdy with worn out struts and the springs aren't dampened at all. Only difference is, mine does that at 2mph with no significant motion in the wheel.

[ZHPizza]

I don't know what the clunking is but the ride height difference definitely makes sense if it was corner balanced with your ass as ballast.

[nsk040]

I'd think the spring rates are sufficiently high that your weight wouldn't cause that much compression from just sitting in the car. Shop could have gotten the ride heights wrong, or perhaps they installed a reinforcement plate on one shock mount but not the other...

With some creative taping, it's possible to get a video camera (i.e. iphone) focused on the top of the rear shock mounts to see if there is movement there as you drive.

Did the noise getting worse coincide with colder temps? Just thinking.

[Asiah119]

I had a chance to run the car by the guy who did my suspension refresh. Lr camber arm was loose. Lr wheel bearing nut was loose
LR Wheel bearing is fucked. That is probably 90% of the noise.

There may be some uneven... Collapse... Idk the correct word on the rr spring. On lr there are 3 full coils of the spring between the upper and lower perches
RR is more like 2. It may just be the clocking of the spring. We're going to find a time he can dig in to it and pull both springs out. If the perches have gone to shit he's going to turn new ones out of delrin rather than rubber.

Then he can fix the shitty way bmw did an alignment. (we had done a string alignment that was exact left and right. BMWs alignment machine had values all over the place and got the alignment values stupidly.)