Bad creaking/popping from front, steering rack?

[Tokay444]

Originally Posted by norcalpb

Control arm or tie or tie rod?

I checked for play in the ball joints/looseness of the nuts and didn’t find anything wrong.

Get it on an alignment rack and put a stethoscope on both. Done.

[norcalpb]

Originally Posted by Tokay444

Get it on an alignment rack and put a stethoscope on both. Done.

Now that you mention it I do feel a weakness from the front suspension. Sounds like a wooden board being smacked against the ground when I hit big bumps.

It’s $1,100 shipped in parts to replace all my front suspension components (steering rack + tie rods, wheel bearings, front control arms), so I just need to figure out how much I love this car.

[Tokay444]

Originally Posted by norcalpb

Now that you mention it I do feel a weakness from the front suspension. Sounds like a wooden board being smacked against the ground when I hit big bumps.

It’s $1,100 shipped in parts to replace all my front suspension components (steering rack + tie rods, wheel bearings, front control arms), so I just need to figure out how much I love this car.

You need to figure out what's actually wrong before throwing parts at it.
My money is it's NOT the rack OR the wheel bearing. There's no misconstruing the sounds of a bad wheel bearing and it only gets louder with speed.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Opie

Check to make sure all the bolts securing the metal tray under the engine are tight...if loose it makes all kinds of fun noises.

Check this as it's free....

My car was making noises like in the video although a lot less of them and only one of the bolts was quite loose, several were snug but not tight enough. Noise went away after tightening the panel.

Might not be it but considering it takes a whole 5 minutes and is free I'd certainly check it before spending any money on other parts.

[DarkSunrise]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Check this as it's free....

My car was making noises like in the video although a lot less of them and only one of the bolts was quite loose, several were snug but not tight enough. Noise went away after tightening the panel.

Might not be it but considering it takes a whole 5 minutes and is free I'd certainly check it before spending any money on other parts.

Yeah I came in to post this as well. I was getting a similar sound after a track day, expected the worst, and found it was just the underbody panels. Probably my fault for not tightening the bolts enough after working on the header. Only made noise when loading the steering rack.

Mine wasn't nearly as loud as that video, so might not be it, but as Dave said it's free so may as well check it.

[chipmunk]

TLDR:
Remove all splashguards underneath the car and drive again. If the problem goes away, then great!

Long story:
My car had popping noises when turning the steering while backing up, whether in reverse or downhill in my driveway. Only happened for a few feet at very low speeds. Turned out that it was one of the splash guards. Whether they were rubbing against something, or the bolts were jumping threads - I don't know. It was just a matter of retightening the bolts for me. Might be a different case for you though.

[ka-t_240]

I have had this noise for years. I only get 1 or maybe 2 pretty solid "clicks". Primary low speed turns or coming up a angle or coming in/out of driveways.

We have nut and bolted the full car many times. Checked bearings/bushings/etc. with no luck. Its almost impossible to get it to do it like the videos in this post.

I had it on a rack once, and was trying goofy things like trying to load 1 corner and pull on bolts and got the click to come while applying torque to the steering rack bolts. But, I could not repeat after taking them out cleaning them up and retorque. The noise came back very quickly after.

[norcalpb]

Just wanted to update this as I did (hopefully) figure out my noises.

I traded my hood with another user’s FRS and I never changed the rubber hood adjustment knobs, and they were way too low so my hood was banging around.

Also I realized I never installed grease on my TRD front sway bar’s bushings so I’m not 100% sure this is the noise, but when I get my grease in the mail I will update again.

Edit: just kidding, it is not my sway bar bushings. Noise is coming more from the wheel. Will have whole car inspected soon. I bought tie rod ends for the hell of it.

[Tokay444]

Have friend do exactly that with the steering wheel while you use a long screw driver like a stethoscope. It’s ball joint or tie rod (which has a ball joint).

[warrhaslauer@yahoo.com]

i agree lower control arm ball joint

[kevaughan]

I had this issue and it turned out to be my front end links. I had those Perrin end links but the rubber part split at the joint.



It only made creaking sounds when steering at low speeds through a parking lot for example; and I heard nothing when I was going over bumps on the road/highway. I now have whiteline front end links.

[norcalpb]

Update: I solved my noise with new OEM outer tie rods. The difference is night and day.

Lower control arm ball joints are still OK after 150k miles.

Wheel bearings are indeed still ****ed, the alignment shop I took it to giggled at the amount of play.

Entering high mileage sucks.

[msaikhan]

Originally Posted by norcalpb

Update: I solved my noise with new OEM outer tie rods. The difference is night and day.

Lower control arm ball joints are still OK after 150k miles.

Wheel bearings are indeed still ****ed, the alignment shop I took it to giggled at the amount of play.

Entering high mileage sucks.

I had the same noise not as loud as yours. I spent all morning and checked everything and it was sway bar bushing, it was hard and crusty, put some WD40 on it. Noise went away. Ordering new bushing. I replaced tie rod about a month ago so i know its not tie rods.

[msaikhan]

You should put some grease on them. They will fail premature without grease.

Originally Posted by norcalpb

Just wanted to update this as I did (hopefully) figure out my noises.

I traded my hood with another user’s FRS and I never changed the rubber hood adjustment knobs, and they were way too low so my hood was banging around.

Also I realized I never installed grease on my TRD front sway bar’s bushings so I’m not 100% sure this is the noise, but when I get my grease in the mail I will update again.

Edit: just kidding, it is not my sway bar bushings. Noise is coming more from the wheel. Will have whole car inspected soon. I bought tie rod ends for the hell of it.