froggy

I did a search first off and only found one thread from a year ago. My problem is that I have a popping sound coming from the passenger side rear end that happens when I apply the brakes. It seems to happen also when I am backing up. the only thing I can think of is when the back end of the car lifts up under the conditions. It seems to be coming from the suspension. The only thread i could find on the problem suggested that it is the bushings wore out. I'm not sure I only have 30,000 miles on the car and it's been there for about 7,000 of those miles. If it is the bushings have any of you replaced them yourself? If so how hard was it to do? Thanks in advance.




Mark

Trexthe3rd

It's most likely the pillow joints in the lower control arm. I had the same noise and after reading many threads came to the same conclusion as you. But after replacing all the bushings, I can still hear that sound. It was finally determined the sound was comming from the pillow joints.
There are three pillow joints on each side, one large and 2 small. The 2 small ones are identical and they are the ones that usually go bad. They cost about 45.00 a piece from the dealer. You can check this by jacking up one rear corner of your car and locking the hand brake. Try to apply a sudden rotation to the wheel in either direction, you should be able to hear the noise and locate the source.

enuttage

Can this also be done on a lift, or is it important that the one wheel be isolated by a single jack?

I'm having the same problem (have been for awhile actually). I've been told it may be the trailing arms, but a $90 fix is better than a $1K fix.

Thks,

-E

Trexthe3rd

I only mentioned using a jack because thats what most people have access to, but yes, the same test can be done on the lift as well.
Another way to tell if the pillow joint has gone bad is this. Take the trailing arm bolt off at the pillow joint and drop the arm. Try to move the joint with your fingers, it should be very tight and smooth and will only move with some effort. If it moves freely without much effort then they need to be replaced.
FYI: If the trailing arm pillow joint is loose then more than likely the spindle joint is worse.

froggy

Thanks guys I will give them a check out. If they are bad how much trouble are they to change?

Trexthe3rd

If you have the right tools they can be chaged out within an hour (both side).
The pillow joints are pressed in and there is a retainer ring that need to be removed.
Here are the tools you'll need after removing the control arm:
a press, retainer ring pliers, a pick

1. remove the dust boot with the pick (becarefull not to damage it, you will need to reuse it)
2. Clean out the grease and remove the retainer ring
3. Press out the old pillow joints
4. Press in the new pillow joints (pay attention to which way it goes in first)
5. Install retainer ring, pack in new grease
6. Install dust boot

You're done.
If you really want to, you can also replace the large pillow joint but only if you REALLY want to.

If you don't have a press, just take the control arms to a machine shop and have them do it for you. (costs ~ 40.00)

Good luck

CCarlisi

Before you do anything go to the suspension section of the mazdatrix website. The site show pictures of all the replacement joints installed. This will give you a good map of what is what for when get under the car.

Regardless of how you lift the car make sure the wheels are unloaded and it is secure. You have to tug and pull at suspension parts so I again want to stress that you should play it safe in this regard. The whole process should take you under 5 minutes. A local gas station let me put the car on their lift to inspect for free.

Once the car is up in the air try moving the wheel around forward back (like it has rear wheel steering) and push/pull the bottom of the wheel(where it meets the road) towards and away from the centerline of the car.

If you still don't hear anything (as I didn't) grab the individual arms and twist them. If the bearings are worn you will have a couple degrees of play accompanied by a popping noise. I had to put a decent amount of abrupt force into them to get this effect. Also, I noticed that it was easier to get them to creek when the rear shock was slightly compressed (the shop put a giant jack under the rear wheel to move it up about 10% from its maximum travel).

If you decide you want to replace the parts yourself I incourage you to take a look at Maxcooper's website. He has a great section with pictures on how to replace the joints without special tools (thanks max.

On my car I found the most play in the lower control arms and trailing arms. The lower control arm has 3 bearings. All three appear to be shot. The mazdatrix website lists only the part number for outer bearings. The inner bearings are around the same price and are also readily available. My trailing arms were also shot. I purchased and aftermarket set (which are supposed to have less play than the stock units). The toe links appeard to be ok, but I decided to replace them with stiffer aftermarket units anyway. Finally I ordered a set of aftermarket dif mounts. The parts a relatively cheap, so rather than replace a joint here and there you might as well do them all. The chances are the ones that are not creeking are close to dead anyway.

Hope this helps,

-Chris C.

reza

CCarlisi,

Would you tell where you get your parts? what brands?
aftermarket bearing for the trailing arms
toe links - I assume k2rd or rx7store
aftermarket diff mount
the bearings.

Thanks

"On my car I found the most play in the lower control arms and trailing arms. The lower control arm has 3 bearings. All three appear to be shot. The mazdatrix website lists only the part number for outer bearings. The inner bearings are around the same price and are also readily available. My trailing arms were also shot. I purchased and aftermarket set (which are supposed to have less play than the stock units). The toe links appeard to be ok, but I decided to replace them with stiffer aftermarket units anyway. Finally I ordered a set of aftermarket dif mounts. The parts a relatively cheap, so rather than replace a joint here and there you might as well do them all. The chances are the ones that are not creeking are close to dead anyway."

BigRed

Just something dumb that I did, I had some rear suspension work done, and afterwards heard a clunking/knocking noise. Hearing so much about rear suspension noise on the forum, I thought "oh great, now I'm a clunker". I jacked the car up, took a look around and coudn't find out what was going on.

well then a week later I was washing the car and I bumped the exaust. And I duplicated the noise! Jacked the car up again, looked at the exaust and the inner hook was tapping against the diff. causing a metal on metal clunking noise. I adjusted the hook bracket on the exaust and put a rubber nipple over the end of the hook.

Problably not related, but I thought I'd share.

CCarlisi

-the control arm bearings are from mazda. I got mine from mazdatrix. I believe they were about $35 a bearing (total of 6 I believe). ~$210

-the trailing arms and toe links are made by a ground control suspension engineer. They are just like the M2/pettit links. I originally wanted the M2s, but neither M2 nor Jason had them in stock and I wanted to get the car together before the end of august(started the project in july). Cost for both items~$500. The front bearings in the toe links are not replaceable (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) so if yours are shot you will need to buy new arms. The aftermarket links have a couple benefits that make them easier to justify-see the m2 site.

-I ordered a set of mazdaspeed dif mounts from corksport for $150(or maybe it was $300). Despite the fact that I gave them my credit card number, told them to second day air them to me (b/c I was on a tight schedule) and made several followup calls to them over the course of several weeks after the mounts supposedly arrived at the shop, I never received them.

I then decided to order mazdacomp mounts but in the time that I was patiently waiting for my corksport order mazdacomp stopped selling to non racers

Needless to say I'm a little agitated by the whole experience. I don't have a lot of spare time and don't enjoy using it to ride people I'm giving my money to. Whatever though, lesson learned.

The current plan (plan c) is to have a local porsche tuner make a set of derilium(sp?) mounts. They did a set for my friend who tracks his car regularly and he is very happy with them. They charged him $100 for everything-including removing the old ones and pressing the new ones in. Not a bad deal. One of the reasons I wanted the mazdacomp/mazdaspeed mounts is because they come with their own bracket so you don't have to get them pressed in.

I'm also adding a set of koni yellow sport shocks w eibach pro springs while I'm at it. I'm hoping to get all this stuff out of my closet and on the car before the end of this month.

BigRed-that's pretty, wish my solution was that cheap

enuttage

Actually, it might BE related. I had the exact same thing happen to me. For awhile my rear end sounded like a shoe in dryer. Part of the problem was exactly what you described. I had a local muffler shop do a better tie down of my whole exhaust system, and one (of three) noises disappeared. It's certainly worth looking into before you rip in to the rear suspension. My noises, however, persist beyond the exhaust bumping...unfortunately.

Thanks for the input (and reminder).

-E

froggy

thanks everyone for your input i'll start checking those things outr soon I hope!
Thanks again!




Mark