txlegend

I had posted a thread a little while back about having a loud squeaking/creaking noise coming from my suspension and a "rat tat tat" noise whenever I shifted from park to reverse. My neighbor, who was a mechanic at an Acura dealership, quickly diagnosed the problem as needing new struts and a lose transmission mount. Well last week I went to rotate my tires, and I noticed that something wasn't right with the mounting bolts in the upper control arms which I had replaced several months ago. The bushing bolts were pushed all the way to the outside and rubbing in the fenderwell. Upon further inspection I saw that the nuts on the end of the bolts that go the bushings were missing completely! The only thing holding the arms in place was the force of the bolts against the fenderwell. I am so glad that the bolts didn't work themselves through the fenderwell because if they would have come off then I believe my wheel could have fell over and off the car. (which is especially dangerous on the freeway.) After checking it out some more, I saw that only one bolt still had its nut on it out of four (two per side). I remembered when I first installed the new arms, that I didn't tighten the nut because the mounting bolts that go into the engine bay couldn't swivel if I did. So I took off the upper control arms, got the nuts off my old arms (keeping old parts pays off!), positioned the engine bay mounting bolts to fit in upright, and tightened the bushing bolts down as much as I could. After reinstalling the arms, the creaking/squeaking went away and I had no more strange noises from shifting the transmission. I did however here a loud "thump thump thump" coming from the passenger side wheel as I drove with my family down the freeway. I stopped at a gas station to check the tire and then I remembered that when putting that wheel back on, the hub wasn't locked so I couldn't tighten it down because the wheel was spinning. And I forgot to tighten it down when I got the car off the jackstands. I thank God, because those lugnuts were very loose and I was doing almost 80mph on the freeway (my new speed limit). But anyway, if your car has problems similiar to what mine had, make sure you check the suspension carefully for anything loose or out of place. Or else you could end up in a really bad situation.

P.S.- I promised my wife that I wouldn't try to kill the family again at least for another month or two.

Bryce

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TXLEGEND
91 Legend LS Coupe with JDM Type II Engine Blacked out on 18's