Front end woes! - August 24th video added

[repinS]

Looking for some insight into some clicking / popping noises I'm getting from my front end. I suspect CV joints and/or strut bearings.

1.) When steering at parking-lot low speeds, I will get a fairly quiet click/tick, almost metal-on metal. I really have to have my windows down in order to hear it. I know that bad CV joints tend to show this, but I've never heard the sound in person before. It sounds like it is coming from the lower front end. It will also make this noise when going over soft bumps. I WANT to say that it's the driver's side.

2.) Even more occasionally, when I steer quickly, I will get a loud POP. Often happens if the car has been sitting for a while. Strut bearings? Contrary to #1, I WANT to say that it's the passenger side.

3.) On top of that, when I'm at crawling speeds and steering into a parking space, I will feel and hear a periodic vibration/shudder every few seconds through the driver's side floorboard.

4.) I had the car up with the wheels off this weekend. Tie rod ends and CV boots look good. Coil springs are in one piece. Nothing LOOKS out of place and you can't replicate the noises when steering without load with the car in the air.

I'm also planning to replace front struts soon with Monroe Sensatracs. Anything else I should look at in while everything is apart?

[crash93ssei]

Every CV that I have ever seen be bad only made the noise while moving, most of the time while turned. A strut bearing will make the noise while turning the wheel then stop when you leave the steering wheel in one spot, whether or not you are moving.

A CV joint going out will sound like metal to metal binding and much of the time get louder when you give it more power. A strut bearing will tend to sound more hollow and "springy" as the sound reverberates through the spring.

Usually if you can hear a strut bearing, you can also see it bind the spring while turning. Have someone else turn the steering wheel while you look at the spring. If it turns then snaps back repeatedly you have a bad strut bearing. It could possibly still be bad even if you can't see the bind, but if you do see it bind then it is bad for sure.

Either way, if you suspect them to be bad, replace them when you change the struts out.

[Archon]

I agree. While moving straight ahead, the CV joint will generally be quiet until it gets much worse. It will also usually make noise while moving and turning one direction, but not the other.

If you can't see the spring bind when the steering wheel is turned, try putting your hand on the spring. You should be able to feel it. Be careful not to get your hand or arm trapped by the wheel.

[repinS]

Thanks guys. Basically I'm trying to decide what to do now. I will definitely be doing struts and strut mounts/bearings, and if the noise goes away, so be it. If not, I'll source a couple axles before I get an alignment and do it that way, as money is a bit tight.

I live on my own when I'm off at school so it's hard to get a second soul to steer or check the spring. But from what I can tell, I get the big pop (see #2 in the original post) even when stationary and it sounds like it's coming from higher up than the wheel.

Any advice on axle brands? There's A-1 and Cardone on Rock Auto, Cardone is new, A-1 is reman. I may end up getting something locally since I fear getting the wrong axle (spline counts, lengths, etc). Is this possible? It also seems that both aftermarket supercharged and NA axles are the same, but this is not the case for ones from GM. I'm also trying to get a quote from GM Parts Direct's Canadian site for some new supercharged axles, their website isn't working properly so I'm going to have to call/email. We'll see where that goes.

What are the chances I could be looking at a wheel bearing/hub here?

[98Park]

Wheel bearings typically have more of a howl than a click and usually trip wheel speed sensors errors that show up as an ABS light and a brake light. But as always you can check by jacking up a corner and checking the wheel for play, grab top and bottom for wheel bearing (12 and 6 o clock) and side to side (9 and 3 o clock) for tie rods)

[turkeykiller]

Wheel bearings typically have more of a howl than a click and usually trip wheel speed sensors errors that show up as an ABS light and a brake light. But as always you can check by jacking up a corner and checking the wheel for play, grab top and bottom for wheel bearing (12 and 6 o clock) and side to side (9 and 3 o clock) for tie rods)

for the cv joint go in a parking lot with room enough so the car can go in circles. Next with the car rolling at low speed turn the wheels FULLY to one side doing circles ,then to the other side. if you her craking noise its your cv joint

[willwren]

NA and Supercharged axles are NOT the same. If they're listed that way, do otherwise. I buy my remans at NAPA for 65 bucks each. One running on the Zilla has been fine for the last 2 years.

[repinS]

New struts, new strut bearings, new sway bar link. Still clunked/clicked. Before throwing CV shafts at it, I took it to the alignment shop since I needed one anyway to see what they thought. Everything checked out good according to them, and they found this:



Front subframe mount on the left rear leg (inner). Fortunately the metal on the chassis is fine, but only the bolt was gone. So I'm limping it around until Monday until it can be taken care of.

Yikes!

[ChilinMichael]

Hrmm..that's certainly not good.

[repinS]

I'm wondering if it was overtorqued or improperly reinstalled when the cradle was dropped last summer during my trans rebuild. No real way to know now...

[ChilinMichael]

Yeah...just make sure it's put back in carefully.

[willwren]

That took awhile to find. The others all look good?

[repinS]

They're still tight and without movement. The struts/bearings/mounts/sway link job was last week during my week off between semesters, delayed a few more days because Rock Auto sent me a DOA Sensatrac. Yesterday woulda just been the 4-wheel alignment if things were peachy.

[repinS]

Okay, all done today. In the 1 hour of labour they replaced the bad mount and greased/lubed up the metal and whatnot around the remaining mounts, they have a little protection on them now. Alignment is good. The loud POP seems to be gone. The clicking type noise is still there, but that's not the shop's fault and we honestly can't figure it out. All steering/suspension checks out and I was hoping it was the mount. Bear in mind that it's not a constant click like CV joints. Very periodical at low speed under braking, steering, or turning and hitting bumps. I'm beginning to suspect brake calipers/pads that are doing funny things. My calipers aren't quite seized, but they definitely are lazy and are on my summer to-do list.

Funny thing I noticed: before changing the subframe mount, when I had the car stationary at full-lock - steering hitting the bump stops - once I started moving in reverse the steering would suddenly move a few more degrees. This doesn't happen anymore, and I don't know if it was a function of the mount or the alignment.

Part numbers on my invoice - confirmed that they are valid according to GMPartsDirect.

15677731 BOLT
1640188 RETAINER
25526705 SPACER
14103535 INSULATOR
25536050 INSULATOR

According to the conversation when the parts were ordered, the front and rear front subframe mounts are DIFFERENT. These are for the rear.

[Maymybonneliveforevr]

Glad to hear it's been repaired. I didn't read through the whole thread Jerry but was this for the rear? I didn't even know there were rear sub frame mounts? Tells you how much I know. Doh!

I'm not looking forward to replacing my front sub frame bushings. Only good thing is I already have the parts.

[willwren]

Frank, he's talking about the front mounts, but the forward set of fronts vs the rearward set.

[repinS]

What Bill said.

[Maymybonneliveforevr]

Thanks Will and Jerry it would be nice to do our mounts together but don't know if we can work that out.

[repinS]

Revisiting: While I thought the new subframe mount fixed this, it didn't - I got ahead of myself. I decided to leave the problem be and if it got worse, to hunt for it again. And yes, after track day it got worse. That was actually a good thing in my eyes. But I still can't figure it out!

I found this week that both outer tie rods had partially torn boots, upon inspection after removal they weren't too bad - a bit worn, but not quite loose. Just about right time to replace as preventative maintenance. Inner tie rods were like new, I actually let them be and returned the ones I picked up, doing only the outers.

Still clunking

Here's a video. Note the big 6 clunks on take-off. It is only periodically this bad, usually its just one or two. I'm still hesitant to say if it's a CV joint, since it seems to happen randomly with suspension travel under throttle/deceleration and/or turning. Having the wheels turned doesn't necessarily mean it makes noise, and it doesn't change in frequency depending on wheel speed. Lately I notice a squeaking/noise of sorts when I jack the front end up and the suspension moves down, but there is NO visible play anywhere. Sometimes when making hard lefts I can feel a big clunk through the floor.


At this point I think it could be:
CV joints
Rear dogbone mount
Steering Rack
Subframe mounts
Inner swaybar bushings (I doubt it now, I could use new bushings but the current ones don't allow for play)

I have already replaced:
Struts (verified tight)
Strut mounts (assembled correctly)
Outer sway endlinks
One broken subframe bolt and mount
Outer tie rods
Torque Axis Mount
Front Trans Mount

Parts that are verified as still good:
Wheel bearings
Brakes (calipers, pads, rotors)
Rear trans mount
Ball joints


Quite frankly I'm tired of throwing parts at it, I've spent almost $900 already. My next gut feeling are the CV axles, but that's $200 that I don't want to spend if I don't have to. There is also the rear dogbone, which is cheap enough but I don't want to take it apart if I don't have to. It was a "wait until it gets worse" kind of problem, but now it IS worse and I still can't find it :(

[Jrs3800]

Jerry that kind of does sound like an axle... Hard to say for certain...

If you were here buddy I could get you new ones for $50 each..