Its actually very important to get the spring seated properly in the bucket.
Not only is the bucket designed to lock in the coil, but as you turn the spring you will actually lift/lower the truck wich effects alignement (camber).
Go look at a stock Explorer's springs and copy that.
Once you see how they fit you will now how and why the bucket is designed the way it is.
Yes your noise could be the coil moving
With my BII the bucket does not have the same "fingers" as the Explorer and the coil can easily drop out of the bucket at full droop, in fact with my old setup it did, and I didnt notice, I drove home with the coil 1/2 in the bucket, 1/2 out, not good
When I wnet to my new 6" wsetup I made some J hooks and actually bolted them to the coil bucket to keep the coil seated no matter what, this also acts as my limiting fator for droop, so no stress is put on the brake lines.
Go look at a stock Ex or two, then compare to your truck.
Loosen up the lower mountand turn your coils as needed (support truck by frame, let axle droop)
Check the alignment when its all correct if you care about your tires.
