Banging and knocking at the front?

[torchy]

I started hearing some knocking from the front and assumed it was a CV joint or something. That was about a month ago and hav'nt driven it because the tank had to come out for some welding. Everything was replaced this week and I took it out for a test drive and of course the knocking was still there, but got very much worse very quickly. At one point I was doing about 40 and the steering wheel started "wobbling" like mad (like balancing needs doing but 10 times worse) like the wheel nuts were not tightened or a wheel was about top fall off!. I limped home and checked everything and could find nothing wrong ie CV Joints, Wheel Bearings also smacked the various ball joints with a hammer etc. and went out again round some local streets.

This time the steering wheel was grabbing (pulling to the left) at each revolution and again felt like a wheel was about to fall off?

Deciding to head home quick and turning into a road VERY Slowly there was some horrific bangs form underneath. It also seemed to stop when I was free wheeling? It also stopped altogether the last 300 yards from home going in a straight line. I then backed it into the drive having to use full lock and againg there was a lot of knocking from the front.

HELP PLEASE because I am stumped It's a 16" Crew Cab with front locker. I bought it from Patrik in Sweden and have a bunch of receipts which he tells me one of which is a rebuilt front Diff only 11,000 KMS ago.

Can a front diff fail "Catastrophically" and cause one side to be "bind up" or something? I don't want to test drive it again and thought first step tommorow is take out the diff drain plug and see what the magnet looks like (if it has one). Are there any other tests I can do with it jacked up clear of the ground??

Look forward to any comments/questions/help.

Peter

[syncrodoug]

It does sound like an outer CV joint, Aidan experienced something similar in Wales.
Doug

[jed the spread]

If it feels like a twitch on the steering wheel when it kicks in then I would say outer CV joint, I have had it a couple of times. Can you not get it on full lock and do a couple of circles? It will knock like a bugger if it is the outer CV and maybe even snap/fail like mine did.

jed

[..lee..]

if you jack it, turn to full lock and turn the wheel you may feel a tight spot or see the driveshaft run untrue.

lee

[John Potter]

My 14" syncro did exactly that ( driving home on the way back from buying it......) its the outer CV joint that has broken on the side the noise comes from. If its making that much noise its FUBAR'd.

When I took mine apart the cage had snapped into 3 bits, good job it didnt lock up on the last 10 miles home.......

[m3nutter]

i had similar - outer joint was bone dry, all the grease had gone hard and squijed to the outside...i repacked with clean new graphite grease and its been all good since

[torchy]

Thanks or all the posts, sure enough it was the CV Joint, but on the opposite side to the noise and the wheel was pulling to the right (it was the left that was knackerred?? ). Also replaced bot the inner CV joints whilst I was at it. Any how fixed now and looking forward to next weekend (Salsbury plain)