Hello,

Well .. the perfect EVO started acting up. Its an '03 with 12.5k miles on it that tonight on dips in the road, the suspension started making a resounding clunk, followed by what seemed a braking pulse. This problem happened mostly on medium braking, and then seemed to get worse to the point where any semi-major dip, I'd get a "ker-thunk" sound from I think the right front wheel well.

I brought the EVO in the garage, and put it on jackstands, pulled the wheels, and shook all the major parts, and gave some love taps with a rubber mallet. Everything seems solid. The drive axels seem to have about as much play as I think they should have.

There has not been any howling, or whining from any bearings, and the suspension seems tight. I dunno if I need to be chasing torque specs on bolts, and see if one is loose.

Any ideas? Anybody encountered this before?

Thanks in advance,

jcnel.

 

do you notice your car acting differently when going over bumps in the road? rebound too high, dips too low, or anything that would suggest it was a strut or spring? is it happening on just the one corner? i had something like you are describing on my front driver side but the car seemed like it wanted to bounce off the road when i hit dips or potholes. it ended up being a broke strut. good luck, mine was covered under warranty.

 

Good Question ... to answer it, no ... nothing serious, no shifts in the weight and nothing dramatic.

I think I found the problem ... after a extensive search, I found a thread where lots where having this clunk happen. Some are having it on the strut mounts, others have it on some swaybar linkages. After getting the car up on jackstands with the wheels off ... I took a hold of the sway bar linkage, and found the passenger side is much more loose than the driver's side. Looks like I'm in the Mitsu dealership first thing Tuesday for some new links. They only look like a 15min. job once I get the part.

Any more comments are welcome .. I might as well be checking other things while the EVO is down in the garage.

jcnel.

 

i have the exact same problem, also have 12k miles on it. i brought the car to dealer and alignment shop, and they didnt see anything wrong. i started to irritated by the noise. well, i'll probably ending up buying coilovers or new sets of struts. bump for more inputs.

 

we all have the clunk. mine started it at 500 miles. i took mine to the dealer and they said that it is normal, they didnt give an explanation for it but said its normal.

 

u r worrying too much. Everybody has some clunks. I spent $100 on checking everything and everything is fine

 

The clunk you are describing is exactly what was happening to me. Everytime I hit a bump it sounded like someome was hitting the drivers side rear crossmember with a hammer. I discovered it was a broken swaybar mount(this was with a hotchkis swaybar) which was allowing the swaybar to hang about 1" lower than it should be, causing it to hit the crossmember and camber bolt on bumps.