I've recently bought an STI new age which has a set of BC BR coilovers which has the dreaded knocking on the rears which I initially thought it was a case of just tightening up the nut on the top mount and all would be fine but on closer inspection it has the later rubber top mounts and they've torn themselves to shreds in just over two years. Obviously I'm not wanting to use the BC branded top mounts again so is there another better quality top mount I could use??

 

Mine is doing the same, how do I tell if i have the newer/older versions?

 

From what I can gather there's rubber top mounts on the newer BC's instead of possibly a spherical bearing set up on the old type? ( I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong?) And that's cured the problem with the nut on the insert from coming loose hence the knocking issues but it appears that the later top mount is a bag of ****e too.
You can tell by removing the rear seats and looking at the top mount inside the car, my insert was way off centre and almost touching the steel part of the top mount, there was also a lot of rubber debris visible and I can physically move the rear insert in the top mount by lifting the rear wheel upwards when the car is jacked up

 

ok i will have a look to see what ive got

 

The diameter of the bearing carrier on the BC's is a different size to standard subaru struts so you would need to have sleeves made to fit a standard size top mount like a group N item.

 

Thanks for the info I was told the OE top mounts would fit so I've already had these delivered so if this is the case I'll have to have a pair of sleeves made up as you say but buying another set of crap BC top mounts wasn't an option.

 

Standard top mounts won't fit.

 

I asked this question to the guys on the stand at Castle Combe, explained I had a slight knock and had the camber adjustable rear top mounts and I was told they do a standard rubber top mount Arch? The guy on the stand told me that so I'm confused now as I was planning on doing the exact same thing.

 

As far as I am aware you can buy a standard type top mount from Apex which fits the BC's but it is specific to the BC coilovers and not an actual standard top mount. I had a set of RM BC's and standard diameter top mount fitting is bigger than the diameter of the mounting shaft on the BC's. Can't remember the exact diameters but they were different on mine.

 

Im just about to fit a set on my gc8, so i may have the knocking .. maybe not, can any of you folks tell me which way the flat side of the top mount faces when fitted?

 

Further to my original post about the poor quality of the later OE type BC top mount issues I thought I'd show you how I've sorted this out.
Not wanting to end up with another pair of rubbish BC top mounts I bought a pair of genuine OE Subaru rear top mounts from Import Car Parts.






After removing the BC top mount it was soon apparent that it was in a pretty poor state, the coil overs being a few months over 3 years old and covered around 20,000 miles. The pictures below are of both top mounts with the O/S being clearly the worse of the two with the internal mounting plate twisted inside the mount which resulted in the top locking nut rubbing the top of the mount, it certainly looks like the rubber is very soft and not up to the job.

Nearside




Offside




As Arch as said further up this thread the sleeve that fits over the top of the suspension insert and goes inside the top mount is slightly different due to the plate in the OE item being thinner and the hole slightly larger so a new pair were machined by an friend who works in a local machine shop in stainless steel. I think you can just see the slight variation on the length between the 2.










All sorted and ready to fit back onto the car. Fingers crossed this mode will finally cure the issue with the rear top mounts.

 

Hi Pete, did this solve the issue? And if so, would your friend be willing to machine some more sleeves so I can do this with mine?
Thanks

 

Don't know if this helps but I bought my BCs in April 2011 and just over a year later the rear rubber top mounts started giving problems for a second time.

When I contacted BC about it they advised there had been a bad batch and they sent me a new pair of mounts and paid to have them fitted.

https://www.scoobynet.com/suspension...bren-apex.html

Since then I had no further problems.

 

What I did cured the issue as I thought but as for the machining it was done by friend on the quiet If you take your old worn bush and the new genuine top mount to your local engineering machine shop they'll be able to turn you off a couple.

I wasn't aware of the thread in the above post so it maybe worthwhile contacting Apex to see if they can help with your issue. I used them for a few BC spares a couple of weeks ago and provided great service.