Carina E

[andyl]

HELP

Can anyone help with a carina E , possible suspension / steering fault.

when you brake after moving forward there is a knocking, then when you accelerate after braking, you get the same knocking.

Checked the engine mounts, found nothing obvious, also a local mechanic has had a look and can find nothing wrong.the knocking is now driving me mad.

any help/ideas would be much appreciated.

Andy

[Mick24]

Bit late with the reply,but it's probally the anti-roll bar link pins.

They connect the anti-roll bar to the suspension strut,and consist of 2 small sealed

ball joints with a connecting bar - the ball joints wear and make a pronounced Knocking noise.

Hope this helps you

[Penfold]

Likewise late with reply but if you haven't found the cause yet.....

Are you sure your mechanic checked the driveshaft couplings properly? You are describing a classic "worn universal" joint problem.

Put the car in the air at the front but then jack up one of the wheels so that it is at the normal ride height within the wheelarch (measure the distance arch to tyre before lifting it up)

Put the brakes on and using a pipe wrench/large mole grips clamp the drive shaft and rotate it sharply in either direction. If the drive couplings or splines are worn then you will recreate the knocking that you hear on acceleration or overrun.

Try it again with the wheels on full lock left and right. If it only happens with the steering straight ahead then suspect the inboard joints. If it happens all the time suspect the outboard CV joint.

Chances are that your mechanic had the wheels 'dangling' when they tested it and this is an angle that rarely gets used within the joint and has less wear evident .

If this doesn't show any problems then yes, you do need to start looking at worn suspension bushes, links and bolts.

[andyl]

Bit late with the reply,but it's probally the anti-roll bar link pins.

They connect the anti-roll bar to the suspension strut,and consist of 2 small sealed

ball joints with a connecting bar - the ball joints wear and make a pronounced Knocking noise.

Hope this helps you

←

mick

Referring to your above reply,have cv's and inboard joints been known to give problems? the car as done 75000 genuine miles, seems a little low for these type of problems.my last one had done 140000 and still as good as.

I have changed the drop links and anti-roll bar bushes and checked things out as you describe above. its driving me mad.

mot was done 2 weeks ago and i asked the tester to have a good look to see if they could find anything. They went round and made sure all bolts were tight but they could find nothing either. do you have any other suggestions?

Andy

[andyl]

Mick

Thanks for reply, can you help with......

Mick

What is best way to check strut mounts and bottom joints.

I have had car jacked up and used a long pioece of 4x2 as a lever under the wheels to see if there is any play in the joints.

This all started after steering rack,exhaust rear section and new pads were fitted.

initially it started out like engine mount problem, accell- knock, brake sharp -knock.Acell/accell/accell, no knocking as brake/brake brake no knock.

ie only happened when you changed direction of force.

i have stripped pads out and checked all springs and clips, engine mountings appear fine, drop links were fine but i changed them as with anti rollbar bushes, the noise is getting worse as time goes on, originally it was just braking and accelerating in straight lines, now reversing off drive and out and and about it does it, track rod ends are fine too, occasionally you get the knock going over speed bumps, but not apparent all the time, cant guess at the number of speed bumps driven over backwards and forth, trying to determine source.

peed off with it really as i sold a carina e with 140k, to get this last year with 60k.

cheers

Andy

[909steve]

May not be same noise but I had a creaking noise all summer which a freind put down to dry weather and shock absorber, you could even trigger it by opening the front door and putting your foot on the kick plate.

Then at MOT it turned out there was massive movement on lower ball joint. Quinton Hazel component is readily available and satisfactory DIY fit with Haynes book of words.

Follow up with 4-wheel tracking check at tyre fitters.