Delsing Klunk Fix Brackets!

[Ryoga28]

Does anyone else have rust developing on their brackets too?

 

[Mallard]

Yeah, mine are rusted too. I'll probably pull them off sometime this summer, clean them up, then re-paint or powdercoat them.

 

[FlyinMSP]

OK everybody, I figured out my problem. You have no idea how much this was driving me crazy. I'm so relieved to have the clunk#2 gone. It was happening 100 times as often as clunk#1, yeah basically constant loud popping like my wheel is going to fall off while driving.

Here was my problem if anyone cares. One of the delsing endlinks I installed had it's ball joints twisted in opposite directions, and they were held tight in place by the nuts on the endlink. So basically, there was no free movement available for these joints. This was causing a bolt that held one of the sides of this endlink to constanly pop against the ball joint housing. The black area that filled in the ball joint was visibly worn by this stupid bolt.

My solution: With the endlink still in place, I loosened one nut that secures the ball joints. Twist both ball joints as far as they will go in one direction, then retighten the nut. Voila!

Pheew. MY CLUNK IS GONE!

I have the same problem and I hope that the same solution will work as well for me. Yesterday I had them installed (as they also did a brake job) by people who "should know", I even got them pictures (from this forum) and all.
The rear feels a lot stiffer now and it's fantastic but the noise is like if I had loose bolts flyin around in the trunk Tonite I'll check to see what they did and hopefully I can fix it the same way peepsalot did...

 

[peepsalot]

Hey man, another update for you on my problem. Shortly after doing what I wrote up there, the noise came back, so I don't think that was really the problem.

I think this was acutally coming from the bolt that connects the endlink to the macpherson struts. I hadn't used threadlock on it and I think it was slowly loosening, either that or the bolt was stretching? Anyways, it made that awful noise on the passenger side for a while then I finally got down and fixed it by removing it, putting threadlock all over it and tightening it back up. I didn't do the drivers side at the time becuase it wasn't making any noises. Sure enough a few days after that, the drivers side starts clunking. I got tired of fooling with it and drove around with that god awful noise for a month and a hlaf or so. Finally two days ago I got a new floorjack and I'm ready to go at it again, it was kinda late that night, so I decide to work on it the next day after work. On the way home from work the noise suddenly becomes totally different. I jack it up and check it out and the bolt hole on my strut is broken.

See my thread here.
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105129&highlight=strut
I'm not sure where to go from here, but I have to drive my car everyday, so I'm just going without a swaybar for now. Does anyone know if this is putting extra stress on other parts of my car and might break something? I wish someone would reply to my thread.

So anyways, my advice to you is to not delay anymore and tighten that crap up if that is your problem. I think the looseness of the bolt caused extra stress there to crack the metal.

 

[biochembruin]

damn, keep us updated peepsalot

 

[Murray]

So anyways, my advice to you is to not delay anymore and tighten that crap up if that is your problem. I think the looseness of the bolt caused extra stress there to crack the metal.

Now THAT sounds like what I'm getting ... after reading this and your other thread, I think I'm going to put my stock endlinks back on. I can't afford buying new struts any time in the near future.

 

[peepsalot]

I can't believe no one else said anything until now. I thought I was the only person with this problem.

 

[4001]

I thought this was supposed to be a good product that helped our cars and didnt cause any new types of problems, and now this....what a bummer

 

[Ryoga28]

never had any problems with the kit except for the rusting...

 

[peepsalot]

I could have something to do with the fact that I never replaced the bar clamp whateveryoucallems. They should have come with the kit IMO.

 

[Ryoga28]

you mean shaft collars? They have a good set at mcmasters

 

[FlyinMSP]

Hey man, another update for you on my problem. Shortly after doing what I wrote up there, the noise came back, so I don't think that was really the problem.

I think this was acutally coming from the bolt that connects the endlink to the macpherson struts. I hadn't used threadlock on it and I think it was slowly loosening, either that or the bolt was stretching? Anyways, it made that awful noise on the passenger side for a while then I finally got down and fixed it by removing it, putting threadlock all over it and tightening it back up. I didn't do the drivers side at the time becuase it wasn't making any noises. Sure enough a few days after that, the drivers side starts clunking. I got tired of fooling with it and drove around with that god awful noise for a month and a hlaf or so. Finally two days ago I got a new floorjack and I'm ready to go at it again, it was kinda late that night, so I decide to work on it the next day after work. On the way home from work the noise suddenly becomes totally different. I jack it up and check it out and the bolt hole on my strut is broken.

See my thread here.
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105129&highlight=strut
I'm not sure where to go from here, but I have to drive my car everyday, so I'm just going without a swaybar for now. Does anyone know if this is putting extra stress on other parts of my car and might break something? I wish someone would reply to my thread.

So anyways, my advice to you is to not delay anymore and tighten that crap up if that is your problem. I think the looseness of the bolt caused extra stress there to crack the metal.

What a bummer!
I'll see tonite or tomorrow and I might just replace them with the old end-links
The old links have rubber, it's prolly there for a reason...
Thanx for sharing your experience

 

[Mallard]

never had any problems with the kit except for the rusting...

Same here.

Peeps - I only installed what came with the kit. Although I have stock endlinks.

 

[Mallard]

Peeps- Why do you have adjustable end links if you have stock springs? In the pic it looks like the endlinks are adjusted to the shortest they can be. If your sway bar wasn't horizontal then that bolt would be under higher stress possibly causing the strut to crack.

 

[Murray]

I can't believe no one else said anything until now. I thought I was the only person with this problem.

Sorry, I thought I did ... maybe thought about it so much I assumed I posted about it.

I thought this was supposed to be a good product that helped our cars and didnt cause any new types of problems, and now this....what a bummer

Here's the thing: the brackets themselves ARE a VERY good product (if you ignore rusting, which is likely due to the so-so paint job on the early ones). It's the end links that are noisy. Because they're significantly stiffer than the oem ones, they're noisier and put more stress on the struts. Where the oem end links would give a little, the Delsing ones just transfer the extra force straight to the struts.

Why do you have adjustable end links if you have stock springs? ... If your sway bar wasn't horizontal then that bolt would be under higher stress possibly causing the strut to crack.

I can't speak for peepsalot, but I did it because they're stiffer and I had / have every intention of buying the Delsing sway bar when / if it's available. Besides, my bar IS horizontal and I'm still having this problem.

I won't be able to get under the car to work on this until Sunday but I'll post what I find out when I do.

 

[peepsalot]

Peeps- Why do you have adjustable end links if you have stock springs? In the pic it looks like the endlinks are adjusted to the shortest they can be. If your sway bar wasn't horizontal then that bolt would be under higher stress possibly causing the strut to crack.

I don't know why, I figured why not get them if I was gonna get the clunk fix. I thought they would stiffen up the suspension or something. They are supposedly designed for stock spring height. They came with no instructions whatsoever, and no one told me the bar was supposed to be horizontal. Is it horizontal in the stock setup?

 

[peepsalot]

I guess I got endlinks for lowered vehicles, that would make them longer, right? I was just looking through my emails, and I told him stock length twice. (pissed)

Edit: nevermind, they are the same length as stock endlinks.

 

[FlyinMSP]

I guess I got endlinks for lowered vehicles, that would make them longer, right? I was just looking through my emails, and I told him stock length twice. (pissed)

Mine are also stock lengh and from your pictures they are excactly the same. I checked just a couple of hours ago and the nut of bottom left endlink was loose, so I tightened it as hard as I could (stripping it a bit -so much for aluminium stuff!). I aslo noticed the they (the guys who, yesterday, worked on my car) didn't put any grease in the "greasable" bushings!! (they are supposed to be "race mechanics" -their boss will hear about it next saturday on my race driving school!). It's a lot less noisy now but they squeak a lot, of course as there isn't any grease! Tomorrow I'll grease them and see (hear) for sure if it worked.

But from the stock endlinks I can see there is a lot more twisting room at the extremities and that makes me think that I should put them back and get rid of those nice, but worrisome endlinks. At first I didn't want them but I was convinced to get them, oh well...

 

[Mallard]

FlyinMSP - Delsing didn't sell you the bushings. They sold the brackets and you had to buy the bushings separately from Jegs, Summit, etc. It's not their fault there is no grease in the bushings as they are not the one that supplied them.

They will squeek from the lack of grease.

 

[FlyinMSP]

FlyinMSP - Delsing didn't sell you the bushings. They sold the brackets and you had to buy the bushings separately from Jegs, Summit, etc. It's not their fault there is no grease in the bushings as they are not the one that supplied them.

They will squeek from the lack of grease.

I know, sorry I should have quoted my own previous messages where I say that I had them installed by well trained mechanics (which can't read a box where it says clearly "greasable"). Delsing made me buy the endlinks...
I love the bracket but I'm worried about those links, especially after what happened to peepsalot...

Edit: I've fixed my previous post