Hello everyone, I was coming home from work today and as always I tried to avoid some potholes in these yucky New York State roads. But this one I could not avoid, I hit one and then I was almost home and started hearing a rattling sound it wasn’t bad, almost like a broken sway bar link

Then when I was going to pop my hood after eating my dinner to check my power steering fluid that has been leaking as of late from a faulty pitman shaft seal on a reman steering box from Napa that is not even a year old.(I know I should of rebuilt my old one which I still have but really needed my car at the time)

then found this !!!

Anyway, I ordered two replacements of the same from rockauto under warranty. God I am so sick of crap parts!! Granted it was probably a defective one out of the bunch. Is there anyway I could of predicted this, maybe by improper torquing of the strut?? Now I’m just really frustrated I’m hoping I won’t mess up the alignment.

 

Welcome to china parts. In all fairness, a good pothole can tear up a lot of parts.

 

I've never seen one do that before.

 

You do realize that it's best to have an alignment done after replacing that ?

 

I did in fact have an alignment done after i replaced both my struts and mounts. I hope I don’t have to pay 100 bucks again for an alignment it just suCks that the parts took a dump in just two months, I recall the rivets that hold the thing together don’t seem to be mushroomed on the underside of the bearing. They are flush to the surface. I’m seriously thinking of putting some tack welds on the rivets. Has anyone used KYB brand mounts. Jeez my mevotech standards lasted 10 summers. These were the most expensive at rockauto.

 

Geeze, your strut mount got pretty dirty in just 2 months! Man, you better check on other suspension parts down there while your at it. Must take one helluva pot hole to do that! your strut mount may have saved other damage by giving first.

 

Time for non stock replacement types. Look at UMI, Founders, etc. Way beefier.

 

Wow, I was going to buy KYB for my TA restore. Glad I dug a little deeper and got founders.

 

Do you have the bumpstop installed or has it been removed or shortened?

 

Summit currently has the Koni yellows on sale; cheaper than Founders...

 

My whole suspension has been rebuilt twice in 17 years which how long I owned the car. I replaced everything(ball joints, inner and outer tie rods center link,etc with good stuff like moog, new springs The bump stop on the strut seems to me just a wimpy sponge that keeps the boot falling off the strut to protect the spring. Yes I did replace the bump stops on the control arms

Finding replacement strut boots were really hard this time around . I remember as a teenager when you could find parts for these cars. A lot has changed in 15 plus years. I loved these cars since I was a kid, I’m now 40.

 

Oops!! I meant to protect the piston on the strut. Sorry I was typing too fast

 

Get a set of solid strut mounts, Founders, DSE ex ex.
they are better in every aspect.
Better handling
Better alignments
Better longevity
Even better ride quality.
Spray some graphite lube in the mono ball every 10K miles or so, and they'll outlive the car.

One of my original vidoes covers installing the Founder's mounts.
If you are decent with string alignments, you can maybe skip spending another $100 on one.
Or just get a lifetime alignment.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac72q0wCgmk

 

Thank you for the detail on these strut solid strut mounts. I recall in the past over the years the alignment was really difficult for some shops to get it dialed in. I had a tool that bolts up to fender, it looks like a turnbuckle with a hook. They had to just settle on feel and not so much by the specs on the machine.

This time the shop was mentioning about a camber bolt kit. This would give you about an extra 1.5 degrees in adjustment, You guys have have got me convinced, I just realized they are a pretty crappy design on GM’s part. Unfortunately, I forgot to mention I did already replace them with a warranty set from rockauto.

I was careful in marking them and measuring the distance from the centerline of each bolt to the radii of the ends of the elongated adjustment slots. I used the inside diameter jaws of a dial caliper to ultimately make these measurements. I also scribed the outline of each strut mount, I know it’s crude, I think it will be ok for now, it’s going down the road straight with no pulling. Last month I bought a set of bilstein rear shocks, so money is a little tight now. Anybody ever been in a similar instance