Yesterday while driving my car started making a horrendous thumping sound from the passenger rear. This is not the first time it has happened. I had a thud for almost a year that I couldn't figure out and it turned out to be my roto joints on my control arms. I swapped out those control arms back to the stockers and it went away. I still have roto joints on my panhard bar and I just ordered poly replacements from UMI. Hopefully that fixes it. The adjusters are tight and so is the joint so it is not a case of something being loose. The joints just make noise and I don't want to deal with the thudding anymore. IMO I feel like the roto joints are almost too aggressive for the street. Everyone flamed me for switching back to the stock LCA's, but honestly it handles exactly the same and makes no noise. I'm just sharing this for anyone who is considering the roto joints. I feel like they are a great product, but just not for a DD that sees pot holes all day. I spoke with Ramey early last fall about what my options were and he was a great help. This thread is no way bashing UMI. I love their stuff and I still have all of it on my car. I'm just switching from the roto joints to a traditional poly setup.

 

Honestly, I'd have to agree. When I was first researching what I should get there wasn't a big consensus so I only got the one end roto joint for the pan hard bar and poly everything else and that thing is still noisy as f**k. Also, not bashing umi but for dd it's quite annoying. I can't imagine having them on my control arms too. I'm in the process of switching mine to a poly. There's just really no way to keep a rotating joint from not making noise. Besides, unless you're doing auto x everyday you wouldn't even tell a difference.

 

For me, I went with the poly stuff early on in my modding days. Poly lca's, panhard bar, and over time the ride became worse and worse, even with making sure to keep them greased. Now, I'm back to stock 1LE rubber bushings and the car is enjoyable to drive again. The problem with using a poly bushing in a rotational joint is the poly binds and degrades over time.

I'd rather give up a slight bit of performance for a more comfortable ride. Unless you're autocrossing or racing your car, anything above a solid rubber bushing is a poor upgrade in my opinion.

 

A properly tightened and lubricated Roto-Joint should be completely quiet.

Have you loosened the set screw and given the adjuster ring 1/4 turn?

We have cars abusing these on LCA's for three years straight with zero noise.

ramey

 

I chuckled when I read this.

I put mine in new out of the box, within a week it was knocking and banging back there. Left it for a while.

Pulled them off, tightened them up and greased them. 2 weeks later it started again.

Just a part of having them I guess. Sure is annoying.

 

hmm, interesting...
Ive had mine on since like winter, and I think they have clunked maybe twice (only over very large bumps). I just put them on the car and greased them, thats it. Mine are non adjustable FWIW. Maybe grease them more than you have already? U sure they are torqued down all the way?

 

yeah i havent had any problems with mine either. I grease mine (or atleast attempt to) on a fairly regular basis though.

 

When I back up you hear them crackle, when you start forward you hear the same.

Every little ripple in the road you hear them clunk and clank back there, I just turn up the radio LOL.

OH , and they are TIGHT I went and bought large washers to try and help tighten them up.

I will put it up in the air soon to change the oil and check them again.

 

At the very beginning of this video turn up the volume, you can hear them creak as I let out on the clutch to move up in line.

They are tight I checked them today, also grease is coming out where I greased them.


AT 5:40 dont pay any attention, I wanted to see how much grip was in the gravel LOL.

http://youtu.be/3EPe5UJRqhE

 

I guess the only thing you have left then is taking them off and tightening the joint itself. Have you tried that?

 

Post #5

 

No offense dude but that was the slowest track drive I have ever seen.

 

It just looks slow and I was on street tires. Most trackday videos do unless you are flying. Most guys(like me) who are really smooth it makes the video look slow. Guys that are not smooth, fighting the car all the time "look" really fast but on the clocks are most often slow.

This was my first time at this track, lots of double apex corners which I have a hard time with for some reason. Lots of blind corners and brake zones.

Here is the final standings for the track event, all the cars there were on a trackday oriented tire except me and the Bondurant Crown Vic.

Keep in mind the top 10 cars were full blown track cars on 200 treadwear tires.

I am not "fast" but I am not slow either lol. Still learning and have a long way to go. If I would have had my Nitto NT-05 tires and my brake cooling ducts I would have been 2-3 seconds faster.

Competition was pretty tough at this event, cars on race fuel, gutted interiors setup and built only for competition. I drove my car on the Hot Rod Power Tour Long haul. After this event was over, I was loading all my trip crap, luggage tools etc to drive 450 miles home. The top ten cars were being loaded into Nascar style haulers to go home.

See here, look for David Driver(me).

http://www.optimainvitational.com/Fa...%20Results.pdf

 

https://ls1tech.com/forums/suspensio...-lca-slop.html

after doing this fix on the LCAs AND the panhard bar.....99% of rear end noise went away........try it you will like it

i use spohn del spheres on my LCAs and a UMI rod ended panhard bar

 

Maybe this is a little better, first time at this track also. I left the car in 4th gear trying to teach myself momentum.


I think maybe one of the reasons the other vid looks slow is they had us spaced out for tv camera's, so there is no other cars to judge how fast I was(or wasn't).
http://youtu.be/qCNDermGiwg

 

I love Roebling Road. I spent two summers going there for Leitzinger Motorsports/Bridgestone as a tire buster.

It was a blast watching the GT-1 Trans Am style cars go around there.

 

Track is FAST, you make a mistake there and your coming home with a torn up car.

Think I ran some 1:28's there....I "think".

 

Mine are crazy noisy too !!

 

I completely disassembled, cleaned, re-lubed, reassembled my roto-joints recently. I didn't use any chemicals to clean; only wiped with shop rags. I didn't want to risk any chemicals damaging the white delrin bushings (might be fine, but I didn't want to chance it). One of them was loose and another was coming apart (I think the threads are damaged since tightening as far as the others would jump a tooth; I should replace it but its back together and holding for now with the set screw ). Much quieter and smoother now. It was a messy but necessary job.