mysterious front end noice fixed

[FRANCIS220]

has anyone noted a strange noice on the front of there cars namely front passenger side the problem being ,the noice is intermitant after much research i discovered the problem to be 2 upper ball joints my car is an au2 xr8 220 just wanted to share my experence apparently its a common prob hard to believe when my car only has 65000 happy driving

[Bucknaked]

I never had a noise, but I had my left upper ball joint replace at Christmas.

By the way, welcome to the forums. When you have a moment, get some pics up of your car and tell everyone a bit about it.

Cheers

Dwayne

[mik]

i am a firm believer that front ends wear out faster with low profile tyres, and firm suspension , i think higher tyre presures also have an effect, .....once upon a time tyres used to be more compliant and absorb a lot more road irregularities and shocks , but bad roads and driving habits will take their toll as well, hence the faster rate of suspension wear we are find on many cars

[mik]

i more thing wheels are also heavier these days compared to the older cars

[plext]

mik, I will agree on the first points, firmer suspension and lower profile tyres (hence less shock absorbtion through the tyre wall) will add up to more frequent suspension component failure, given that the components are identical to more olde worlde style parts, due to the added impact being passed through to the suspension itself. Higher pressures in tyres will obviously compund this, except in the case of stupidly low tyre pressure (Tried running flat? It stuffs shocks/springs quicktime )

Will not and cannot agree that wheels are mysteriously heavier though. I can assure you through bitter experience that the twelve slotters on my old XB coupe of years gone by were considerably heavier than the Simmons on my ute.

[plext]

Getting in early.

Yes Buck, I did notice the comment re: pics and will rectify the situation ASAP.

As to what is, it's a slightly tired looking AUII ute that I picked up for 16k about 4 months back. It had 169k on the clock but had not really done any serious ute work as such. I have since pulled the motor and stretched it to 347, applied the twisted wedge head fix and had a slight altercation with a bumpstick that did not wish to come out to be replaced with a crane 2030. Emissions are being dispensed with in most handy fashion by a set of tri-y Pacemakers and a 2.5 twin system. A twEECer got involved when the V unit got stroppy about the changes (over fussy I reckon). Intake is still utterly stock :o . Yes, yes, I know this is killing it, but I'm still utterly undecided as to what to do here (comments/suggestions welcome), I'm a bit of an N/A diehard, but am sorely tempted by the numbers of force feeding. The slushbox is also bare, pending my decision on intake. Hope that covers it.

Preemtive thanks for the welcome too.

kthx,
Paul.

[sbcb]

AU2 XR8 50000kms left upper ball joint. Also had rear shock mount rubbers replaced - also another common one. While we are hear the front loading 6stack cd players are very unreliable.

[Lukeyson]

yeah both my AUII XR8s had it

[mik]

Originally Posted by plext

mik, I will agree on the first points, firmer suspension and lower profile tyres (hence less shock absorbtion through the tyre wall) will add up to more frequent suspension component failure, given that the components are identical to more olde worlde style parts, due to the added impact being passed through to the suspension itself. Higher pressures in tyres will obviously compund this, except in the case of stupidly low tyre pressure (Tried running flat? It stuffs shocks/springs quicktime )

Will not and cannot agree that wheels are mysteriously heavier though. I can assure you through bitter experience that the twelve slotters on my old XB coupe of years gone by were considerably heavier than the Simmons on my ute.

hmm i was thinking more along the lines of wheel comparison tyre wheel out of factory, xr6 for comparison 225/50 16 compared to the old 6 or 7 inch steel wheels ,many modern factory alloys arent light, factory xr6 are quite heavy , and wheel size is generally bigger than earlier cars, ok well agree to disagree

[plext]

Heh, hadn't really looked at it that way I suppose.

Some of those old razor blades were light in many respects; weight, grip, looks.

The point is conceeded

[Au2falcons]

Just something I have discovered, my AU has a similiar noise which I posted about a while back. I noticed it was worse on hot days and when the brakes had a work out.

What I did was gently remove the retainer ring from the rubber boot on the L/H top ball joint, it had very little grease in it, so I packed it with alot of grease. The noise has almost disapeared, I rarely hear it anymore. I think that becuase it was poorly lubed it would generate a lot of friction and heat causing expansion of materials and therefore play in the ball joint, which in turn causes the noise. I don't see the need in changing the ball joint yet.

Cheers,

Adrian

[mik]

my ИИИ`s mate come up with the idea for lubing sealed ball joints, he gets a syringe and injects grease into the rubber boot, fairly cluey i thought, ..... only a doctor would think of suming like that, yep he`s a doc