Whats that noise? Front suspension

[MatB]

I hate any squeek, rattle or clunk that a car makes that it shouldn’t. I’m on a mission to find this noise

The sound comes from the front drivers suspension I’m pretty sure. When driving it occasionally happens on hitting a dip or bump. It has a kind of metallic “twang” almost like a spring moving or a spring not seated properly. Nothing can be felt through the steering wheel but you can almost feel it through your feet on the floor  

Before purchasing the car it was in Hangar 111 where it had new arb bushes (standard) and new droplinks. I thought it would be worth sticking some polybush bushes in, no difference! Having a look at service notes there is mention of the rubber spring seat, has anyone had any issues with these before?

 

Any ideas of where to look, had the wheels off to look a few times but I haven’t been able to find anything. 

Bonus picture

After 6 years working I only just found out we have an underground carpark, very small carpark but makes the exhaust sound amazing

[mik]

The noise you are describing sounds like dry front arb bushes - which they are prone to. 

[Whitey]

If you’ve already had arb bushes done, then I would say it was the lower wishbone ball joint. I had this at 35k miles. There’s a thread on here about it but you basically have to buy a new wishbone which comes with the ball joint and the 2 bushes already fitted. You can not just replace the ball joint unfortunately, like a lot of cars now.

Edited March 30 by Whitey

[TdM]

Note, if you scroll down a few threads you will see a similar thread. It's not always your arb bushes. There are still a few cars where this has happened occasionally with no explanation. Just goes away again and seems to be something that causes no actual issue and it's undiagnosed to this point.

[EGTE]

Have you checked the brake pads? Can't remember if the NA has a single slider for the pad, but if it does, this can allow the pad to rattle over certain bumps sometimes. Drove me nuts in my GT410 for a while, but some copper-slip and bedding in fixed it.

[MatB]

Drove yesterday for 100 miles and not the slightest of noises! 
its not brakes pads as its too loud a spring noise instead of a rattle 

I did have a good check around the ball joint with a pry bar and couldnt feel any movement, again my understanding is the ball joint would be more of a rattle. The noise is the odd one off twang. 
 

More investigation needed!

[Bibs]

On 29/03/2024 at 23:03, mik said:

The noise you are describing sounds like dry front arb bushes - which they are prone to. 

^ This is probably the issue. 

[EGTE]

Could it be the steering spring?

[MatB]

So… the noise still persists! 
It went away for a while and is now back with a vengance. Every drive it makes the noise regularly and pretty consistently

I’ve had the wheel off a had a good pull/push/lever on alp parts where I could and couldn’t feel any play. Next step is to remove the damper and spring, the noise is so spring like that I am wondering if the end of the coil has broken off in the top mount. 
 

I have regreased the ARB bushes, they didn’t look to need it, plenty grease already there. Renoved the droplink and its nice and solid so no issues there. 
 

if all else fails the car is booked in tonthe garage in a couple of weeks. I just cant stand the noise and not being able to find it!

[mik]

Any idea if the lower front wishbones have been replaced? I had to get both of mine done last year as the balljoints had failed and were allowing some vertical "jiggle". They aren't cheap unfortunately.

[MatB]

They don’t look to have been, it could be ball joints but I can’t feel any movement with the car jacked up. I guess when I take the shock out it will be easier to try various things at different points in the suspension travel. 
 

I have noticed the price of the wishbones…. Ouch

The car has a 1 year warranty that covers various components not sure how the wishbone come balljoint fits as the cover the wishbone but not the ball joint. Guess if its the ball joint they’ll get out of that claim

[agentdr8]

10 hours ago, MatB said:

The car has a 1 year warranty that covers various components not sure how the wishbone come balljoint fits as the cover the wishbone but not the ball joint. Guess if its the ball joint they’ll get out of that claim

The ball joints are part of the wishbones, and not a separate orderable part, so it could be argued it's included if there's fault in the wishbones.

[MatB]

SOLVED

So I stripped the shock and coil off the car yesterday evening and again found nothing loose and no play in anything. Feeling a bit baffled again I thought I would remove the coil and check if the very end was broken or cracked. 
 

What ai found was the coil was stuck to the shock collar. Build up of some surface corrosion and road dirt meant it took a good bit of levering to get it off. Wire brushed and a little coating of grease (which i’m now regretting as dirt will stick to it!) everything when together nicely. 
 

30min test drive today and no noise at all! Hopefully all is fixed. 

 

 

[Techyd]

Because it's a Lotus and because it's an Evora, I'd have taken it out on a two hour test drive, just to be sure 🙂