Here’s a question for those of you who are running the Spoon torque arm and cross member. I just swapped in a T56 along with one of these cross member & torque arm combos. Anyway I noticed that I can hear this clunk sound when driving. It seems to do it when I first take off from a stop, slow or fast it doesn’t seem to matter. It also occurs when costing and I hit the brakes or when crusing and I let off the gas. Is this just the shackle on the torque arm moving or do I have a problem. I purchased it with the polyurethane bushing instead of the spherical rod ends because it was supposed to be a bit quieter. I’m just wondering if it is normal for this torque arm to make any noise.

 

its probly just the shackle/swinging mount that Spohn uses... it does move around quite a bit. i'm running their torque arm and crossmember for my 700r4 and it makes alot of noise just as you describe...from starts and braking. its just the mount shifting around but double check everything to be sure

 

Yea that's what I figured but it made me wonder after doing a tranny swap that I had to rebuild myself before I put it in. I really doesn't sound like it is tranny related. I'll be sure to take a another close look next time I have it up on the jacks. I did notice that the shackle was very close to the tail housing on the transmission. Has anyone had any problems with the shackle hitting the tranny?

 

For what it's worth I have one on my TTA and it doesn't make any clunking noises.

 

make sure the mount on the front of the t/a to the cross member is good and tight. if this one is loose it will cause the sound your describing. mine did this when i first put it on, but after tightening it the noise went away.

good luck
thanks
anthony

 

My Spohn TrqArm does that as well, I hate that sound.

 

how tight did you make it? its suppose to be able to move around and not bolted extremely tight

 

snug and greased up the noise should go away. ur right it cant be too tight it needed to be able to move.

 

it can still move but mine had been taken apart and was not tight enough. its snug enough to not make noise but loose enough to still move.

thanks
anthony

 

Either that or take a look on the drivers side of the trans tunnel. There is a bolt there that hits the torque arm. It only happens on a few cars. It is a bolt that holds the fuel and brake lines to the car.

 

mine is abit loose.... i should try tightening it some more but i cant seem to get any more out of it.

 

I'm confused - are you guys talking about tightening the bolt that goes through the poly mount? or are you talking about tightening the bolt that goes through the mounting piece that holds the poly mount?

 

the bottom bolt where it mount to the crossmember.

I believe the bolt where the poly is can be tight since there is a bushing.
the bottom one is metal to metal contact I believe and needs to be able to swing some.

 

I wish Steve would chime in on this... maybe if we had only spelled his name right in the subject haha

 

indeed. i seen this bolt in the middle when i was removing the stock carb lines from the t/a, so i removed it and dented the floor pan in then used a shorter bolt. the pic that md posted is what i was talking about. the bolt that runs through the poly mount was not tight as the torque are had been removed. i tightened that one up and the thunk went away. also, make sure the lower joint and top poly mount are well greased or they will squeak after a bit of driving.

lol at the comment of spelling his name wrong, spoon builds high revving honda powerplants, spohn builds kick *** suspension components which reside under my car

thanks
anthony

 

Haha. Yea I know its spelled Spohn, apparently it was just a typo.

That bolt at the bottom of the shackle is supposed to be loose but I may have it too loose. Also I never noticed any interference from the fuel line bolts so that might be it. I'll have to take a look this weekend.

Here's another question. My stock cross member had two bolts on each side. The Spohn cross member has three holes on each side but this third hole on my car is not tapped. Should I tap it and put in that third bolt, it that needed? If so, what tap size would match the stock bolt?

 

I'm gonna do mine. My tap set came with 2 of the same size taps and I'm missing the correct one (thanks Harbor Freight) but I think it's M10 * 1.75 that you need. I don't remember for sure. Take one of the bolts to Home Depot and go to their bolt section and they have a thing where you find the hole your bolt screws into and it tells you what size your bolt is. For the sake of avoiding having to change sockets when removing your crossmember, just buy 6 new ones all the same size. That's what I plan on doing.

 

So after reading this thread, I finally took the time this weekend to get up under my car. The bottom bolt (without the bushing) was indeed loose, so I tightened the living hell out of it. On the way home I backed up, no clunk, took off quickly, no clunk. Yay! Then going through the curves I downshifted and CLUNK.

I'm assuming its loose again since its clunking everytime I backup and takeoff.

This is a shitty design if you ask me.

 

So does anyone else have a problem with their torque arm making noise? If so, were you able to correct it? I've tried both tightening and loosing the bolts on the shackle. When I do this is basically makes different sounds but never goes away. When I grease it, it seems to quite down but that only lasts for a couple of days.

I hate this freekin thing. It makes my car sound crappy like it falling apart. I also have wheel hop now which I never had before. I'm thinking about swapping back to the factory torque arm but haven't decided yet.

MD Formula - Did you have any problems with your arm making noise? I see that the shackle on yours is leaning back at almost a 45* angle. I wonder if that is good or bad or makes any difference? The shackle on mine is straight up and down.

 

I took mine off because of it, as well as the driveshaft loop making contact with the TA. I bought mine in 03, and since then I guess they oval the DS Loop. Mine did not even come with the rubber insulators that you see on the photos. My car is a street car in the 15s maybe, so i think that it is a bit overkill. As were all the poly/spherical LCA.

I went back to stock TA and LCAs for now. Still have a spherical link panhard.

 

I used to have a clunking problem with my turbo spohn crossmember. I fixed the problem with subframe connectors. My driveshaft loop was hitting my transmission tunnel when I was driving down the highway, this only happened because of the flex in the body. Subframe connectors stiffened everything up and I've never had the problem again.

 

My drive shaft loop is not hitting the floor. It's not that close. I actually just got sub frame connectors put in my car tonight, but not because of this problem. The noise is still there. The car feels much better with the frame connectors though.

graebz28,

How do you like the stock torque arm compared to the Spohn piece? I assume this got rid of the noise. Did you change the cross member as well? What bracket do you have to use to hook the stock torque arm to the T56? Can I use the bracket that was on my 700R4 or do I have to use a bracket from a T5 or T56? Is the torque arm from my automatic the correct length?

 

I just installed my spohn torque arm and guess what!, bang! evrytime it shifts from 2nd to 3rd.WTF? 1st to 2nd feels great.

I dont get it,why is 1st to 2nd is good smooth firm and quite but 2nd to 3rd I hear and feel a clunk kinda like a busted trans mount,but my mount is new.

 

It is the design of the arm, it is going to make noise like that, IMHO it is a poor execution of a descent design. It is a pretty easy fix, if you put a little though into it, and think about what the purpose of the design is. It works, it just needs the execution of the design fixed. With not much fab skill, and a few bucks, you can fix it yourself. if you want to PM me, I'll go into more detail, but I am not going to go about fixing peoples products for them for free on the internet.