E36 Phantom
11-01-2007, 05:45 PM
Ok, so ages ago I said my RSM's were dead. There is a terrible knocking/rattling I hear from the left rear corner of the car whenever I'm driving over any tiny bumps. So, going ghetto mode, I parked my car in her usual spot 45 minutes away from dorm in one of the few parking garages (not open lots) on campus, and proceeded to disassemble.
First attack was in the trunk. Moved my sub out of the way, and after a while got all the damn carpet undone. But wait, it looked OK from there.....
Next plan of attack, jack it up and look underneath. So, pull out the jack and my handy cig-lighter powered floodlight, and up goes the car. Welllll, the RSM looked fine from that angle too. In fact, it even looked pretty clean. Not willing to believe I'd been stumped, I lowered the car, walked back to the dorm and borrowed a friend's camera (pics will be up soon).
I came back, lifted the car, took the wheel off for better inspection, and started feeling around and snapping pictures. I'm convinced the RSM is OK, unless I'm just really blind. I even pulled around (lightly) on the shock piston near the mount to see if it felt at all loose. I hit a few of the moving parts to see if anything felt loose, to no avail. I spent a good 15 minutes with my floodlight trying to inspect as many bolts as I could without sticking my head in the wheelwell (on factory jack, no stands), and came back with....nothing. Since I don't have jackstands, and was just using the factory peg leg jack, I was in no mood to go crawling around beneath the car to inspect, or shaking anything hard, so I put the wheel back on and gave up....
So, what else could make a knocking sound in the rear? Sounds like something hard hitting metal, but not really a metallic sound per se. Could it be my rear subframe mounts? This Saturday (or maybe Sunday, can't remember) I'll be doing a tech day w/ my car club here on campus, and I'll be able to look around under the car since I can use some jackstands.
What exactly should I look for that could be the culprit? Any help is much appreciated.
First attack was in the trunk. Moved my sub out of the way, and after a while got all the damn carpet undone. But wait, it looked OK from there.....
Next plan of attack, jack it up and look underneath. So, pull out the jack and my handy cig-lighter powered floodlight, and up goes the car. Welllll, the RSM looked fine from that angle too. In fact, it even looked pretty clean. Not willing to believe I'd been stumped, I lowered the car, walked back to the dorm and borrowed a friend's camera (pics will be up soon).
I came back, lifted the car, took the wheel off for better inspection, and started feeling around and snapping pictures. I'm convinced the RSM is OK, unless I'm just really blind. I even pulled around (lightly) on the shock piston near the mount to see if it felt at all loose. I hit a few of the moving parts to see if anything felt loose, to no avail. I spent a good 15 minutes with my floodlight trying to inspect as many bolts as I could without sticking my head in the wheelwell (on factory jack, no stands), and came back with....nothing. Since I don't have jackstands, and was just using the factory peg leg jack, I was in no mood to go crawling around beneath the car to inspect, or shaking anything hard, so I put the wheel back on and gave up....
So, what else could make a knocking sound in the rear? Sounds like something hard hitting metal, but not really a metallic sound per se. Could it be my rear subframe mounts? This Saturday (or maybe Sunday, can't remember) I'll be doing a tech day w/ my car club here on campus, and I'll be able to look around under the car since I can use some jackstands.
What exactly should I look for that could be the culprit? Any help is much appreciated.
