6605stang

So I decided that the night before the first track night of the season (brilliant idea), I'd put the BMR LCA's on the SGT (the ones that were on the 05GT for about 2 days before it got totalled). They are straight and appear perfectly fine btw, the accident didn't touch them.

So I put them on and now when I go to shift there is a slack-like knock at the beginning of the shift? Just once on each shift... like something has slack in it now. WTF did I do? Everything looked right and what the hell could I have screwed up... I mean it's a pretty straight forward thing to do... so I thought.

Please help me understand what I might have messed up or not considered. If I don't hear much soon, I guess I'm going to take them off and put the stockers back on... hopefully whatever the hell is going on will go away with taking it back to stock.

DRock

Did you torque them down with the suspension loaded?

6605stang

Well I had the car jacked from the rear diff, so that should be loaded right? Otherwise how do you get it loaded and still get under it?

I did raise it back up this morning and torque it down to 129 lbs. that someone else told me what necessary... the bolts did turn about another round, so I thought that might be it, but nope. Took off and it's just and much as before. For what it's worth it's sounds more like a thud... almost like something is knocking against the frame/floorboards. Just saying that's what it sounds like. And it's just ONE "thud" every time I shift even remotely quickly. If I really baby it and very lightly shift, it's not there. There is "play" in something now, I know it, I just can't figure why replacing the LCAs would cause it?!

6605stang

Okay I think I figured it out... Just called BMR and Lee over there (great guy btw... same guy I bought them from)... immediately said he is 99.9% sure what the problem is. He said that the bolts are technically one time use bolts and that the threads go RIGHT up to the bracket side. So if they've stretched AT ALL, the nut will run into the end of the threads before it gets proper tension on the LCA bracket. He said I need to add 1-2 washers to the bolt side to give that nut more thread to tighten down on. Makes sense too, cuz if there is play in the front side (body/framerail side), you should would feel it through the floor boards and I suspect that would most likely sound like a thud. NOW... how the F do I get this done before track night tonight! I know I should have tackled this sooner! Damn.