First gear clunk after camber arm replacement

[01SG]

Hey guys, I had a slightly bent camber arm and managed to replace them the other day. Everything bolted up fine and the car handles and drives perfectly with no suspension noise whatsoever. That said, there is a newly discernible distinctly drive-train clunk precisely when letting out the clutch and engaging first gear. It only seems to happen for the first few minutes when cold, though I can provoke it with some effort and manipulation when warm.

I've read various things about the cars doing this normally, except what bothers me is that it never did it before unbolting the differential. I'm thinking of a few steps in the process that might have caused a problem:
-I did not replace the bolts, though I have them now, they didn't quite get here in time.
-I put the rear (front?) two bolts in snugly then the m14 the same way, then did the final tightening on the two first.
-perhaps I tweaked something with the driveshaft while moving around the differential

I have jacked up the car and checked, everything is still tight. I can see the m14 and it has not backed out. Any insights would be appreciated!

[eacmen]

Front diff bolt would be my first guess. It backs out easily.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jake.s54]

Having this exact issue after reinforcing subframe and all new subframe bushings. ball joints, monoball rtabs, diff bushings, center support bearing and guibo. Every diff bolt is torqued to spec and triple checked since. i never had this clunk before i did all this work. Im interested to see what people say because it seems that everyones gonna just say your didn't tighten the front diff bolt hahah.

[DanAvoN7]

Hey guys, I had a slightly bent camber arm and managed to replace them the other day. Everything bolted up fine and the car handles and drives perfectly with no suspension noise whatsoever. That said, there is a newly discernible distinctly drive-train clunk precisely when letting out the clutch and engaging first gear. It only seems to happen for the first few minutes when cold, though I can provoke it with some effort and manipulation when warm.

I've read various things about the cars doing this normally, except what bothers me is that it never did it before unbolting the differential. I'm thinking of a few steps in the process that might have caused a problem:
-I did not replace the bolts, though I have them now, they didn't quite get here in time.
-I put the rear (front?) two bolts in snugly then the m14 the same way, then did the final tightening on the two first.
-perhaps I tweaked something with the driveshaft while moving around the differential

I have jacked up the car and checked, everything is still tight. I can see the m14 and it has not backed out. Any insights would be appreciated!

The order in which you torqued the differential bolts is incorrect. With all bolts installed and just tightened finger tight you want to first torque the front bolt and then torque the rear two bolts. Front bolt is to be torqued to 148 ft-lb and then rear two bolts an initial 15 ft-lb torque followed by a 90* angle torque.

[eacmen]

The order in which you torqued the differential bolts is incorrect. With all bolts installed and just tightened finger tight you want to first torque the front bolt and then torque the rear two bolts. Front bolt is to be torqued to 148 ft-lb and then rear two bolts an initial 15 ft-lb torque followed by a 90* angle torque.

Concur. Also From my experience I now recommend putting red loctite on front diff bolt. Some may disagree but I've had it back out too many times.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[01SG]

I'll start by replacing and re-torquing the bolts then. I did loctite it, but I must have read the order incorrectly somewhere. Perhaps it's a good excuse to replace the upper control arms while the diff is out again; I didn't realize nothing else had to be taken apart.

Thanks for the help, I will update if it works out.

[cudzich09]

Let us know how it turns out