Lloyd wrote:Your springs will have the same load on them no matter what, the weight of the car defines that. Moving the springs lower on the body of the strut is why the car sits lower, no other reason.
Shock absorbers do exactly what they say. They don't really have any more load on them when they're fully extended or when they're near on completely compressed. The are there to control the spring from continually bouncing.
Hmm, thinking about it further that makes sense. The only reason why it's not rattling when I have more gas in the tank is because the extra weight isn't allowing the shock piston to rebound back up as much, which doesn't allow it to rattle. So it makes sense that going lower wouldn't have the same effect as filling up the tank more because there wouldn't be any extra weight, however I was hoping that by reducing the travel of the shock it wouldn't rebound as much and the rattling wouldn't be a problem.
touge_ae101 wrote:That is debatable. with racecars we corner weight them and adjust each corner to where it distributes it the most evenly. it does make a difference but not really for a road car.
What it could be though is the rear heights could be slightly uneven, so raising the side that is rattling by 1 turn or so could stop the problem. another trick is to wrap the end coil top/bottom with insulation tape.
That's a good tip. The ride height has become slightly higher for some reason since getting my alignment so I'm planning on going slightly lower all round. Hopefully once everything is nice and even the noise will stop.