I had an Alta 19mm rear swaybar installed on my Cooper at MOTD. I specifically chose the Alta because it comes with rubber bushings, which are supposed to be QUIET. I'd rather replace the rubber ones down the road than listen to the poly ones all the time.

So, a mere 1,500 miles later, my rear suspension has started squeaking pretty loudly on more pronounced dips in the road. It's already fairly annoying, and I assume that it will only become more sensitive as time goes on.

I guess my question is, is there anything I can do to grease the bushings or otherwise address the squeak without dropping the subframe, etc., and is there any way to prevent this from popping up in another couple thousand miles? I love the swaybar, but not enough to deal with this every month or two. Do other Alta owners have this problem?

(I guess that's three questions...)

The car is only a year old, so I don't yet suspect anything other than the sway bar of causing this noise.

Thanks!
Chris

 

Process I've used is as follows:

• Put the rear of the car up on jack stands and remove the rear wheels.
• disconnect the rear drop links from the bar
• remove the two 10mm bolts that hold the rear swaybar mounts (remove both sides)
• the metal piece that holds the bushing in place can then be removed and the bushing can be greased. I have found it works best if you remove both bushings at the same time, then reinstall them both with the hardware loose so that you can get all the 10mm bolts started, then finish by tightening everything down.

As far as other ways to decrease the noise, I have seen reports of people using teflon tape on the bar in addition to the grease, but I haven't used it myself.

 

Thanks, Dave. I'm not real familiar with the parts back there, but I did watch Chad do it, so hopefully I'll be able to figure it out. As far as doing both sides at once and then tightening things down, is there any difficulty in lining things up properly if I'm doing the job solo?

 

It's an easy one man job. The bolts will be a little tougher to get to without dropping the subframe, but lining things up is easy.

 

make sure you grease inside outside and bottom of the bushing to rid the noise.

 

Thanks, guys. Not sure when I'll have a chance to get the car up in the air; probably not till a week from Saturday, but this is helpful.

 

My rear bar squeaks like a madman all the time. Since the OEM mount was way smaller....the H-Sport mount rubs on the body. I just need to dremel a section out but I am too busy and too lazy.

 

Does the 22mm alta bar come with rubber bushings? I just ordered one and assumed the bushings were polyurethane.

 

a610,
You are right urethane bushing not rubber.
But if anyone needs more grease just email us your info and its off in the mail! The grease we supply is special energy suspension grease. It is veyr sticky and will stay put for a very long time.

If you live in an area with salted roads you might need to grease your bars more often than we do here in Oregon. Anyway give us an email jeff@altaminiperformance.com

 

make sure your package comes with the brackets. they are
notorisous for missing parts...

 

Being accurate with including the correct part is something we pride our selves on. Obviously Kenchan had something missing, but this isn't something to expect. kenchan, did we get you taken care of?

a610
Anyone that orders bushings gets brackets and grease.

 

Take the paint off were the rubber bushing go and put the loob on it and you shoudent have any problems we do it to all the cars in our club when we install a swaybar good luck

 

Ive Just gotten the energy suspension 22mm bushings 9.5158G for my Alta 22mm bar, ordered on E-Bay. I was going to just swap out the whole fitting , rubber and metal bracket and use some High Temp /Waterproof wheel bearing grease.Does any one see anything wrong with that??.

 

cabmeister,
That part number will have to be greased quite offten. If you bought them from us, we have special bushings with grooves to hold grease, and we include special grease. All of which are energy suspension custom made parts. That same kit from us is $15 if you haven't gotten them yet. The ones you are getting are just fine, but you might need to grease them once and a while.

 

Un fortunatly they have been purchased , but these rubber bushings have grooves and slots in them .They are on the inside where the sway bar tube goes through .There is a hole in the top of the bushing that will allow grease to be pushed down from the nipple fitting .These were $17 and some change .It would have been good to know that you carried these items . I infact found out about these from the Alta thread.

 

Keith,

Don't think they'll fit. I bought a set of these and they were too big to mount. The bracket and the bushing are quite a bit larger than the Alta ones. I took the grease fitting off, drilled and tapped the Alta bracket, put in the grease fitting. Cut grooves into the bushings with a dremel, mounted the modified bushing and mount and haven't had a squeak since. It's been two months and the difference is un-believable.

Have fun in Ocala this weekend. Wish I could be there. Hopefully you guys will take lots of pictures!

 

Hey Nyle .Not even checked as yet to see if the bracket comes close .I just referanced the suggestion by Alta on their thread that for the 19mm bar, energy suspension part # 95156 was the one to use for the grease fitting , the bracket size diagramme was listed on E-Bay ,so all i did was to get the 22mm bushing with the same size bracket as the 95156 which was the 95158.

If all else fails , I will be on the phone to Alta for their kit .

 

Well today I found the time to try at changing out the original Alta 22mm bar bushings and as our friend Nyles mentioned I found the energy suspension brackets just a bit too large . I checked out Alta`s site And could not find the place to order up there greaseable fittings .Can anyone advise please.

I gave the old bushings a healthy grease up and found it to make things silent again at the rear end.

 

Keith, why don't you contact the rep from Alta, username ALTA2? Here's the info in his signature line:

Jeff Perrin www.ALTAminiperformance.com | AIM-AltaPerrin | 503-222-MINI

Hope that helps.

 

Thank you m`lady ,the obvious was looking me straight in the face and I could not see it . I will be on the landline Monday for sure.

 

When I first installed my bar, I had a squeak noise... I didn't tighten down the end links tight enough on my original test drive.

To my credit, it was 3 am when I finished up, I was a little tired and forgot to give one last tighten on the bits!

 

My 19mm bar came with rubber bushings. Is this incorrect? They are squeaking constantly, and the shop I took the car to said that they were deformed, as if they were too small. They suggested that I purchase new bearings.

The person I spoke to yesterday at Alta insisted that I had polyurethane bushings, which I do not, so the conversation went nowhere.

Where/how can I order new bushings, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of rubber vs polyurethane?

 

I just got rid of my Alta 19mm rear sway because of the squeeking. Sounded like a mattress in a cheap motel. Didn't matter how many times it was lubed (and not by me, but by a MINI performance shop). It'd be great for a day...maybe two. I'm going back to Pro-MINI. I never had squeeking problems with them. My husband has an Alta 22mm and his squeeks all the time too. I'm totally not impressed.

 

my 22mm squeaks like CRAZYYY, when ever all this ice melts im gonna put some more lube on.

 

When I installed my 22mm alta bar, I used the grease they supplied (if I remember correctly that is...)
At anyrate, 10k miles after the install and it has never squeaked at all, the only noise (rattle) was from the alta adjustable endlinks, and all I had to do was tighten them up.