Hi all,
A while ago I posted on here about my woes with my 306. When cornering and travelling at low speed across rough ground, I can hear a creaking/banging type sound coming from the O/S front wheel area. The general opinion was that the arb droplinks needed replacing. Well I replaced them, and guess what, the noise is still there. Does anybody have any ideas? I have pinned it down to about 3 components. It could be the wishbone bushes are shot. (Any way to test these, visually they look ok.) It could be the lower balljoint on the bottom of the strut (Again, where do I push/pull to test for play?!) or it could be the strut top mounting. I have ruled out the driveshaft as I have already replaced this. Does anybody have any ideas, as replacing bits randomly is starting to get expensive!
Cheers
Ross
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to test them you need axle stands: if you do not have them and use a jack the following procedure is VERY dangerous and should not be carried out due to risk of serious injury.
Put offending corner of car on axle stand and also have jack in place (not actually bearing any weight but ready to in case axle stand collapses). I may sound paranoid about safety but 1 tonne of car does a lot of damage:-(. Wheel about 2 cms off ground. Handbrake on. Car out of gear. Wheels chocked at front and rear with wood to prevent car rolling.
Take a large screwdriver/tyre lever or chisel and apply to lower wishbone trying to move it sideways (brute force required). If you see any type of side motion, faulty.
Then apply one hand to top of faulty wheel and one to bottom when kneeling facing wheel. try to rock wheel up and down. If you can, something is worn. Get observer to view balljoint. If it moves a lot it is probably worn.
Try to rock wheel side to side with hands on either side of middle of wheel. Any noise? May be wheelbearings needing adjusting.
Top strut mounting. All wheels on ground, bonnet open. Try to turn wheel - (may need engine on for power steering). Try rotating steering wheel half a turn left to right and vice versa. Observer to look at top strut mounting. If it moves, may be fauluty.
If all else fails , try a garage.!
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Hi I had a simmilar problem that the garage could not crack found it was the bottom ball joint had worn in a strange way and could not be detected by the usual means. found my worn joint one day when changing front wheel when I stood on wheel nut wrench (trye place used very large gorrila to tighten nuts)car mooved slightly forward and the knock / offending noise became apparent.
chris
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1. Check the lower wishbone rubber bushes - look for any signs that the rubber is separating from the metal. But on my 306, this was associated with some vibration under braking, not with creaking/banging.
2. You've already done the anti-roll bar drop links, but ....
In my case these were associated with what I described as rattling (not creaking/banging) when driving over rougher surfaces. Being on the anti-roll bar, the rattling was worse on surfaces where the two wheels were moving independently - driving in a straight line over a speed hump produced no rattle (just the usual boing / crunch!).
3. Check the pinch bolt on the bottom ball joint is (very) tight. When my garage fixed [1], they forgot to tighten the pinch bolt and it allowed a little bit of movement. Just enough to make an occasional knocking noise. Not loud, not often and didn't worry me until it was spotted during an MOT.
4. None of these fully fit your description. Which just leaves the top suspension mounting which (touch wood) I haven't had any problems with yet.
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