Suggestions? Front Sway bar access

FooBird

FooBird

If the Foo...well, you know. Just wear it.
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Kirkland, WA
Vehicle Model
Si
Body Style
Coupe
I’m chasing down thunking in the front suspension and low hanging fruit are the front sway bar bushings.

I had the car up on jacks last weekend and it’s tight to get any tools in there. Any advice on gaining access to remove the brackets and slide in some nice new greased up bushings?

Hopefully the thunk is just a couple bad bushings and not like a failing engine mount or other component that goes thunk at low speeds at start/stop and low speed maneuvering.
 
Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. Go in, take a flat wrench in and slowly remove the brackets half a turn at a time.

Guess I’ll be hanging out under there for a bit.
 
Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhh.....have fun with that. I would check your motor mounts first. lol

I remember trying to swap out the front swaybar bushings to some Moog ones but it was a giant pain in the arse due to the lack of space. I can't remember if I gave up before even starting or the Moog bushings ended up having the wrong inner diameter.
 
I wanted to wait on motor mounts just because sway bar bushings are much cheaper. The more I drive, the less I think it’s sway bars. I have the bushings in hand so gonna do that first.

Upper motor mount was disconnected to fix the dry starting issue, so that’s entirely possible. I’ll go there next…I wanted to avoid this whole bit with this car but it’s replacement is still off in the indeterminate future.
 
Well, after fighting with 30° wrench turns and getting new bushings installed, no dice. Onward to the next thing. Not even sure where to go next. Lower motor mount, combo of upper and lower mounts. Side mount? All of the mounts? It’s another $600 for the suite of mounts.

Could it be something else, lower control arms, shock mounts?
 
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Going with upper and lower mounts. Gonna do lower mount first and then try the upper mount. I don’t like this game plan but it is what it is.
 
$600 for OEM stuff?

Do a nut and bolt check on all suspension stuff and visually inspect any rubber type of bushing.

I remember the top nut on the shock was loose after a couple days of installing new coilovers. It caused a thunk noise going over any slight bump or crack in the road.
 
You could get a jack under the motor and lift it up to see if you have play in some of the mounts?
 
Great ideas. I’ll have to do this next weekend
 
webby said:
You could get a jack under the motor and lift it up to see if you have play in some of the mounts?
Click to expand...
Putting a jack under the motor will just move it regardless. When you install the rear motor mount, you have to support the motor with a jack as the motor will drop slightly when you remove the oem rear mount. Which causes difficulty installing a new mount unless you support it with a jack.

I've seem people actually be able to wiggle the motor(to an unacceptable amount) around just with their hands, now that's def bad motor mounts.
 
I’ve been trying to wiggle things, have checked bolts, etc. nothing seems to be loose. I’ve done that a few times.

I know when my lady was in the passenger seat, she said she could feel something under her feet when the noise happened. Lower motor mount and sway bar bushings. So lower mount next, then upper mount.
 
Motor mounts ruled out as those are now new and noise continues….

Strut tower mounting or axle bearing next on the list. Strut mount is next….
 
Went to Honda dealer to check prices and order strut mounts. Parts guy asked to look at the car and found something!!! And somehow I’ve been missing it.

Looks like one of the subframe bolts came out and the passenger side back corner of the subframe might actually be the cause of the noise. $7 bolt incoming Friday. Hopefully that helps.
 
I had a similar issue and the dealership just went around tightening bolts and found one on the subframe loose. I hope that’s all you need.
 
PROBLEM SOLVED

missing bolt between front subframe and the body. I was real close but slightly off. No wonder you could feel it through the footboard on the passenger seat. There literally was the subframe hitting the body part of the frame.
 
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