I fixed the rattle that's been drving me CRAAAZEEE!!!
 

This is long, but in the hopes it might help someone else I'm gonna post it up.

Ever since I put on my struts shocks and springs (FRPP items from the handling pack) I've had a huge increase in road noise from the front. And when going over sharp bumps I had this grating rattlethump sound I could NOT find.

I must have put the car on the rack 5 different times checking for loose fasteneners, hoses, bodywork etc. I kept coming back, though, to the conclusion that it must be the FRPP struts.

I was frustrated to the point I had convinced myself that I must have put the front jounce bumpers in wrong. I was checking things over with the car on the ground (mentally preparing to tear the front end apart) and the wheels turned when I realized that the strut dust boots were compressed SOLID.

You see, new boots did not come with my struts from ford and I simply reused the factory ones. Well, at ride height, the boots were so long they were jammed solid between the strut top and the lower spring perch. I never realized this before because I had always inspected the car in the air with the suspension extended.

Cutting two inches off the bottom of the boots with a razor knife and I didn't even have to pull anything apart. NOISE IS GONE!

Thank goodness. It was like driving a truck over what passes for paved roads here.

Good find, and definitely something that other folks could run into easily enough.

Just for the heck of it, since I had a stock strut boot sitting on my desk, I measured it. From free standing to fully compressed with all corrugations stacked is only 2.5".

Not a lot of leeway if you use them with a large drop spring.