Doesn't the strut shaft have wrench flats at the top? A small wrench goes on those to keep the shaft from spinning while you tighten the nut. You might need what's called a "crow's foot", which is kind of like an open-end wrench cut off short with a square drive socket hole in it, to use with a ratchet or torque wrench. But for quick and dirty, if you can only tighten the nut a little with just two wrenches it might be enough to determine if strut nut tightness is the problem.




Norm

 

The strut shaft does have flats for holding it while tightening. I'm familiar with a crows foot wrench but didn't think of that, I used two wrenches like you suggested and the nut didn't budge.

 

Have you checked the front sta-bar's chassis brackets? If they loosen, or even if only one side does, one wheel bumps in particular will make them start talking. Never mind how I know this, but the Ford dealer couldn't find it when the car went in the shop for a SJB issue and I asked them "while you've got the car, what about this noise?".


Norm

 

No I haven't, I'll be sure to check them the next time I work on it.

Thanks
Eddie

 

I pulled the passenger side strut assembly this morn and saw this...





I'm thinking this could be the cause of my noise but I have no idea how to fix it other than replacing the tubing that's over the spring and run it up to where the spring is rubbing on itself or is that where that tubing should be instead of all the way down on the perch?

Thanks
Eddie

 

Check the shock top nut to be sure it is torqued correctly.

 

I replaced the Roush springs with Steeda Ultralite springs this weekend. The camber plates were ok so I replaced the stock isolators with the isolators from the GT500 mounts I bought. The noise is gone!

For the sake of staying on topic, what I learned is that Caster/Camber plates are the same thing as the strut mounts with the exception that if the Caster/Camber plates you use don't have isolators, you'll reuse the isolators from the strut mounts that were on the car.

Thanks everyone for the input! I made sure to tighten things up in all the suggested locations.

Thanks
Eddie

 

Glad to hear that all is well.