Hello all, I have what seems to be a common problem with these cars on my sons 96' Contour. The dreaded clunking noise in the rear suspension. We bought the car from the previous owner who had just put new rear struts, strut mounts, and sway bar end links on. Everything was fine for a while. However, after he had put about 10,000 miles on it, we started noticing a clunking sound that has progressivley gotten worse. After crawling all over the back end of this car, trying to find something loose, I have finally found that the nuts that hold the strut to the upper mount have backed off enough to make this noise. My questions to anyone out there that has had this problem are:
- Can I tighten them up without taking the struts out of the car?
- If so, is there a proper torque for these nuts?
- What size is the nut anyway? I haven't been able to the right socket to fit them.