What's this sound? Audio clip inside

My legacy has 125k on it, and all the suspension components are original.

 

My car has been making odd suspension sounds for a long time, but it seemed especially noticeable tonight when going over a speed bump in a grocery store parking lot. The sound is coming from the front of the car, and I've attached a sound clip of me going over the speed bump a couple of times. You have the sound of my car going up the speed bump, and then coming down from the speed bump. It's one of those flat topped speed bumps that has a pedestrian walkway in the middle of it, in case the length between the first noise and second noise seems long. I should also mention I'm going over the speed bump a little faster than I should be to ensure the noise is a little louder and more pronounced, maybe not the smartest thing to do but oh well. Let me know if I need to adjust the sound clip volume up or down.

 

http://home.comcast.net/~apexigsx/subaru/suspension0.mp3

Hmm.. Sounds like it might be this H-Bracket under the transmission? Maybe over the weekend I'll check the bolts.

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/creaking-popping-sound-11454.html

Just wanted to give an update in case someone else ever hears this sound.

 

Last night I checked the torque on the 6 H-bracket bolt and they were all fine, which doesn't surprise me because I didnt think that was the problem. While working on my car, I decided to lube the front and rear sway bar bushings as well.

 

Today I went over the same speed bump twice, and the car was completely silent. Last time I went over the bump it was 32f outside, and today it was 48f outside. My guess is lubricating the sway bar bushings did the job, since I don't think a 16f temperature difference could make the sound go away completely. Ill see if the sound comes back some night when it's colder out, but I don't think it will.

Apexi,

 

I am experiencing that same exact sound. Its good to know its just my sway bars. However mine is occurring in the front and back. What did you use to lubricate them and was is as easy as just applying it to the endlinks or did you have to disconnect everything?

The best thing to do is what BarManBean said.

 

A few years ago I picked up some subaru silicone spray that I use to lubricate my bushings. There isn't a 100% perfect seal between my bushings and front sway bar, there are some small gaps I can see. So I usually attach the small red tube to the spray bottle and try my best to spray inside of those small gaps, hoping that the liquid gets distributed a little better as I drive the car and the bushings flex a bit. My front bushings also appear to be 2 pieces, so I'll usually try to spray inside the gap between the two pieces from below (see attached picture for what I mean). The seal between the rear bushings and sway bar is better, so I basically just spray them down from the side, hoping some liquid works its way between the bar and bushing.

 

Can you just remove the bracket that holds the bushing to lube the bushing more thoroughly, or do you have to remove the whole sway bar first? I feel dumb asking, but I don't know a whole lot about suspension components.

Interesting. Is it hard to take out the front and rear swaybar bushings? (same question as Apexi)

 

I might want to do this along with tightening the H-bracket when I get a chance.

 

The sound is exactly the same as when I am backing out of my home's driveway. Annoys the hell out of me.

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1595&pictureid=8132

 

Interestingly, it's more pronounced when I'm backing out as opposed to going forward.

I know we're talking about the bushings, but, it sounded more to me like the stabilizer links.

 

OP, check out this vid (4:08): [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYosZGby0-I]Front End Noise, 2003 Honda Element Stabilizer Links - EricTheCarGuy - YouTube[/ame]

Thanks for the vid. When he has the pry bar against the first end link, that noise does sound a lot like the noise I have, and after 125k mine are definitely a little old. I'll have to them out sometime. I would think if end links were the problem the noise wouldn't have gone away like it did, but it might've just been a fluke thing.

^Yeah, my brother showed me that video. He basically summarized it as thunk-thunk sound for bushings, creak-creak sound for end-links.