R53 GP rear suspension clanking
 

I have a very loud metal on metal clanking sound coming from the rear suspension. I do have the madness sway bar installed. The sound seems omni-directional and comes from the center rear of the car. The clanking is constant over anything but a billiard smooth road.

I have had the car up on jack stands twice and looked at all the components and cannot find anything amiss. Took it to my shop, they got it up on a lift and hammered (with a rubber mallet). They could find nothing wrong either.

I am at a loss....

Any ideas?

Do you have adjustable droplinks installed? If so, have you checked them for condition and possible pre-load. There should be none. To check, you'll need a drive-on rack or jack the rear up and then lower the rear wheels onto ramps or similar equal height supports.

Might be a swaybar clearance issue as suggested, but also check the exaust....
The mounts tend to rust...even come unwelded from the unibody...or the rubber connectors can fail....either way the exaust can bump a bit at times...

The clanking got worse and worse. So I put the car up on stands, fully charged my cordless impact wrench and hit every bolt that I could reach. Noticed that several of them turned a bit as I put the impact wrench to them. Hmmmm, maybe when I installed the Madness Rear Sway bar, I did not torque them to spec. But whatever it was, by hitting all the bolts again with my impact wrench, it cured the clank. Woo Hoo! My Mini is back!