90 240SX, Several small annoyances

[soundwavetsunami]

Hey everyone, I bought my 1990 240sx last weekend, and for the most part I'm pleased with it, but I've got a couple issues that are more minor annoyances than anything else. The car was obviously in an accident at one point (even if I wasn't told that by the previous owner I knew it was in one after I drove it). The body was fixed, but there's a couple things that linger that tell me all wasn't fixed.

Apparently the car was hit on the passenger side rear quarter panel because there's a mystery "CLUNK" when the right rear wheel goes over bumps. I popped off the wheel and checked out all the components, and well, they're all there, and aren't noticeably damaged at all. The clunk almost comes from inside the car, by the rear seat/window area. I haven't had the time to take off the interior body panels to check it out, but it almost sounds like it's a body issue versus a suspension issue. The interior plastic parts for the rear seat armrest don't line up as well as they do on the drivers side, and there's screws holding the panel just behind the passengers seat. But the CLUNK definately sounds like it's metal to metal contact, maybe metal to hard plastic at the very most, but it's a very hard sound and extremely annoying when driving over the lovely potholed/broken roads of Illinois at low speeds. At high speeds I have to hit a fairly large bump to get it to clunk. Oh and the car drives pretty straight, it pulls a little to the right, but there's no noticeable tire wear on the car at all. And the car handles great, asides from the pulling to the right issue.

And then there's the passenger door. This is probably the most aggravating thing of all, mostly because I can't use my dome lights and I do a lot of nightdriving so everytime I get in the car I have to fumble around with my keys to find the ignition. There's something bizarre when the passenger door closes. The seat belt works fine, but the Door Open light on the dash will stay on and so will the dome light if I leave it to turn on when I open the doors. The little rubber sensor on the body itself works fine, if I push it with my hand, the dome lights turn off. But when I close the door, I have to literally pull on the door to get it to go off, and even then, once I go over a bump or sometimes just let go of the door, and the dome light/door upen light comes back on again. I thought I ghettofixed it temporarily by duct-taping a wad of papertowel to where the sensor meets the door, but that still doesn't work. And I compared the two door latchs to eachother and the only difference was that the passenger side is missing a little plastic ring around where the latch itself catches. And the door sits fine and closes fine, so it's not the hinges.

I guess I'm just asking:

Where's this clunk coming from and has anyone ever had a similar issue? What can I do to fix this?

What the crap is up with my door sensor? Does this not make sense to anyone else?

And should an alignment fix the pulling to the right issue?

Thanks for any help you guys can offer. It's just really annoying and I want the car to be as solid as a stock 16 year old car can be. And once I get these small things fixed I can worry about making it not so stock. Thanks again.

[45guy1]

About the door closing...I had the same issue and the fix is to move the doorlatch on the body (not the door) inward so that the door closes tighter. Two large phillips head screws to loosen, and wiggle the latch inward, away from the open door, and retighten. Voila!

[soundwavetsunami]

Oh, I hadn't really thought of that... I'll try it out later today when I can get my car in the garage.

Thanks!

[s13sr20chris]

clunk-jack up that wheel and shake vigorously from top to bottom and side to side. there should be no noticable play. also, access top of strut(same wheel) and try to tighten center nut(or the other two if loose). thats common.last, check your subframe bushings. they are the rubber bushings around the subframe bolts. those are not fun to fix.

[soundwavetsunami]

clunk-jack up that wheel and shake vigorously from top to bottom and side to side. there should be no noticable play. also, access top of strut(same wheel) and try to tighten center nut(or the other two if loose). thats common.last, check your subframe bushings. they are the rubber bushings around the subframe bolts. those are not fun to fix.

The wheel has no play. The top nut on the strut is definately loose, but when I turn the nut the entire thread rotates with it. I got it to an acceptable noise level once after cranking on ita bit, but after driving for 30 minutes the clunk came back. I'll drop the shock this weekend to dink around with it, and maybe replace it. We'll see. Thanks for everything guys.

[180fan]

Replace the upper mount on the strut that has the spinning stud.

Get the alignment. It's worth its price since it saves your tires and takes that uneasiness away from the driving experience.