Clicking Noise from Pro-Kit (pic)?

[wolverine_man]

I just started to notice a faint clicking - maybe chattering - noise coming from the front of my car - mostly right side but sometimes driver side as well. I only hear it once I get going down the road and it doesn't seem dependent on whether I am turning or whether I am going over bumps. I hear it best when I am not on the freeway but going at a decent speed down a major road.

It sounds pretty close to the clicking sound my glove box is making (which I need to fix) and I was actually convinced that the sound went mostly away when I opened the glove box door. It is also very cold out right now in Michigan, but I am worried that it is related to the install I did last week on my Eibach Pro-Kit. I have put about 250 miles on my 3 since that install. I also have 18k total miles on my 3.

Also, as I posted in a different thread, I placed the clear rubber tubing on the Eibach springs about in the middle of the spring on install, as I was told that tubing doesn't do much. Perhaps I should have placed that tubing at the end of coil where it makes contact with the strut assembly? Would that mistake cause the noise? I just can't believe that tubing would last long and not get worn out like that, though. Seems like the rubbing would wear right through it.

Is this the culprit (note, this is not a Mazda3 kit, but just to illustrate the tubing):

Where should that tubing have been placed on install? Mine was slid somewhere around the center of the coils.

 

[tsunami]

when i installed my pro kit i didn't have any rubber tubing to go over some of the coils and i don't have any clicking... are you sure its not a loose bolt somewhere that you forgot to tighten?

 

[wolverine_man]

Well, they are supposed to come with rubber tubing for the fronts. And Eibach and other forum members stated that the tubing needs to be pushed to the very end of the bottom edges of the front springs. Essentially that tubing gets sandwiched between the steel perch cups (bottom of strut assembly) and the coil. It goes around the first to second coil to prevent the coils from tapping each other.

ALSO, I noticed by looking through my wheel well that my front pass side spring does not meet the edge of the flanged steel perch cup. There's about a pinky width's gap between the end of the bottom coil and the edge of the perch. That might be causing the noise. It should look like this (not a pro-kit, though):

My driver side looks good, except for the tubing placement. Maybe this explains why it feels like the driver side is lower (because it's seated properly and the pass side is not).

So, I will pull the front struts, reposition the tubing, properly seat them, and double check all the bolts.

 

[tsunami]

yeah that deffinatly sounds like thats your issue. sucks you have to remove the struts again (pita) strange that one side didn't seat properly i wonder what its snagged on especially after driving i would think it would pop into place pretty easily...