'99 Bonneville, annoying front end rattle...

[Bob Dillon]

My '99 has an annoying front end rattle. Right side only. It occurs when driving straight and increases on right turns; on left turns, curiously, it goes away. I popped the wheel off yesterday to see if the brake pads had prematurely worn and saw that they were fine. I also shimmed up the clip that holds the ABS sensor because it seemed a little loose. No ABS or CELs. I didn't see any bright spots where anything was rubbing against the wheel and no score marks, etc. on the wheel. Nothing, hoses, etc. appeared to be out of place.

Does anybody have any experience with such a problem? Thanks.

[sandrock]

Were the struts recently done? It's possible the strut isn't tight at the mount. I know I had to tighten mine up about a week after putting the struts in because the air impact didn't quite get the nut down far enough.

[Mechanical Mike]

Did you check for play in the ball joints & tie rod ends?
Was the sway bar end link still in one piece?

[Archon]

Also check the stabilizer links. They can rattle if they become loose.

[J Wikoff]

Rattles I've found can be affected by turn direction:

Floppy starter bendix
Harmonic balancer (early in failure in my case)
Sway bar links

Other than things I've actually come across, I'd have to look at everything to think what's going into tension or compression during turns and could loosen or get clamped down.

[dpcookson]

LOOSE NUT BEHIND THE WHEEL???

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Bob Dillon]

LOOSE NUT BEHIND THE WHEEL???

Sorry, couldn't resist.

A definite possibility.

Thanks, all, I'm gonna tear into again this PM.

[crzydmnd72]

Just a thought, are the calipers bouncing around on the bolts? When I did my wife's brakes last week, one caliper had no bushings left and it was floating around on the bolts, but the clunk was random and hard to reproduce consistently

[reb]

++ check for a broken stabilizer link.