I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: __Rear suspension
When fully loaded in the boot, with someone sat in the passenger side, bouncing up and down on the rear passenger side wing generates a metallic clunking sound. There is no sign of a damper leak, the handling seems fine. The clunking doesn’t appear to be linked to be going over bumps specifically. It hardly happened at all with just me in the car, it’s made worse with greater load in the car.
MX5 Parts say new Bilstein dampers are due December. Bilstein say end October earliest, three weeks for an overhaul.
The Mazda/Bilstein number is NH47 28700A. The new Bilstein number is 24-121-759.
I’ve tried to read up on previous threads on the clunking noise but not really seen what the actual problem was that was found. Could you point me in the right direction please?
Has anyone got a used Bilstein shock they don’t want which I could get overhauled?
Sadly, my car has recently developed a clunking sound at the rear, both sides. It’s driving me nuts as I can’t find an obvious fault. I had MeisterR’s fitted last year and have only covered at most 2.5k miles so far, so I’m hoping they’re not at fault. My mechanic is away on holiday at present, but I did take him out in the car before he went to let him hear this noise. So hopefully when he gets home, it’ll be on his ramp to see if we can diagnose the problem.
My mate’s garage took both rear shocks out and stripped them. Nothing wrong with any of the other bushes on the suspension arms. My car is a sport apparently so has the yellow Bilstein shocks. Delivery from MX5 Parts, end December, from Bilstein, end October at the earliest. Car stripped anyway. And lo and behold the bump stops, particularly the passenger side (where the knocking was coming from) were completely shot. They were replaced along with the top mounting rubbers by parts (SI6322) from MX5 Parts. The bump stops used were the uprated blue ones part number SI8155. 70 miles trip around twisty roads suggested that the clunking had gone. Might be wishful thinking but the whole rear suspension felt a lot tighter during the drive. Saved quite a bit of money by accidentally not buying new shocks as they were unobtainable. Nearly bought the wrong shocks anyway from MX5 Parts, they corrected what I really needed after I gave them the VIN number.
Passenger side on left in both photos. Last photo shows the top mounting bushes.
I stripped my boot apart today just to check that the suspension nuts were all tight…everything good.
Next week before my mechanic gets back….I’m hoping he finds whatever it is, otherwise it’s pointing to the Meister shocks which I have read a few reports of them clanking.
Fixed !!
Embarrassingly, the noise was from the new drop links. I had tightened them…but apparently not tight enough. Plus he found some paint had clogged up my calliper sliders which was causing the pads to rattle too, but mainly the drop links were the cause. I have to hold my hands up for the links and my excuse is that mostly working on motorbikes, you use finesse, but cars seem to demand brute force and ignorance !!
Well, another clunking clanking sound had come back to haunt me. I rechecked the drop links to no avail, checked all suspension bushes/units etc and finally after a chat with my mechanic friend, decided to buy this stuff and grease the spring clips and the backs of the brake pads.
TaDaaaaa !! No more noise. So it was the pads making the noise. It’s kinda unbelievable that they can make such a racket and only on certain types of bumps or road irregularities. Anyway, I’m happy that quietness has returned and it was £20 well spent.
The blue grease is great, but eventually the rattle can return and you have to re-grease the pads again. So, under advice from my mechanic chum, I fitted a genuine set of oe pads and hey presto, no noise. I’ve been running with these new pads all summer now and the rear has been silent. So oe is the ultimate solution.
