Strange noises from front suspension

tielrooy · Post by **tielrooy** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 12:38 pm

Some time ago I found on the forum a really good and cheap solution for getting rid of the creaking sound of my back suspension. Now I'm driving around for 2 months on the, in my opinion, really bad Swedish roads and it looks like this really hurt some parts of my front suspension. Hopefully there are some good ideas about this as well.

There are two things that happen, sometimes both at the same time, sometimes just one of the two:
1. I hear a tick in the left front wheel when making a turn to the right. Could this be a worn bearing?
2. When taking a speedbump (at a decent speed of course) or something else in which your springs are used more than average like the connection of a bridge to the 'fixed' road, there's really a screeching noise coming from the suspension left front. Possibly the right side also makes this noise, but I'm not sure about this.

As I said, it doesn't happen all the time. I didn't find out yet if there is a correlation with the weather, but it might be.

Does anybody have a suggestion? I couldn't really find anything in the old topics.

MatBat · Post by **MatBat** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 1:00 pm

The ticking sounds like your wheel bearing, yes. Not a MOT failure but just damned annoying. as for the shockies, I have no idea sorry.

chriskay · Post by **chriskay** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 2:55 pm

When mine was making funny noises from the front (sort of creaking) it was the rubber bushes in the suspension/steering. Got replacements from Volvo & Kwikfit fitted them for a modest charge. Hope this helps.
Chris.

tielrooy · Post by **tielrooy** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 3:18 pm

I forgot to mention that I'm not able to reproduce the sounds when the car is standing still, wheels on the ground. The shockabsorbers seem to be ok, considering the 'press-and-release test'.

Thanks for your response, chriskay and MatBat. Crhiskay, could you be a bit clearer about the rubber bushes that were replaced, I mean do you know which bushes to look for exactly? I guess there are more.

chriskay · Post by **chriskay** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 3:57 pm

I had replaced the lower wishbone bushes. Probably worth checking the anti-roll bar bushes too. You should be able to see if any of the bushes look in poor condition if you can get the car up on a ramp.
Luck, Chris.

gerrsvolvo · Post by **gerrsvolvo** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 6:44 am

Hi Xander
On the matter of The first sound you mention
Is is only one click or tick or is it ticking as long as you make the turn?
If so then it is probably the wheelbearing.
This can be done by yourself but I advice a garage or Volvodealer.
You need the bearing(s) , beasringgrease and special central lockingnut.
And you need the centallocjÂ°king nut to torque to 220nm for the maniual and 230nm for the automatic. Hardly a figure that a normal hobby man has the tool for.
And do not overtighten the nut. this may cause shearing (breaking) of the axlestud. We had it twice.
he iothre sound you mention coukld be several things so erad the foregoinganswers but there is one posibility more.
That i sthat the bolt from teh stbiliser is touching teh innerwing.

Good luck

tielrooy · Post by **tielrooy** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 9:24 pm

I have been driving around for some more time now and I jacked up the car. This way I found out some more about this problem and the direction to look for a solution.

The tick I hear sometimes, while steering to the right, is probably the same problem as the creaking sound I here while taking a speed bump. The tick is most of the time just once or twice.
It looks to me that both sounds (tick and creak) are caused by the spring and shock absorber being pulled out.(*) That explains why I only here the tick (on the left side) while turning right, the left wheel is lifted a bit then. The creaking sound only appears with bumps in the road in which the wheel is pulled away from the car. When the wheel is only pressed closer to the car: no sound at all.

(*) The sound also appeared while jacking up the car, so when the wheel was pulled away from the car.

Furthermore the sounds only appear in dry weather. When it's raining or the air is really dampy, the sound is completely gone, even on the roads here.

Before I dismount everything, which is not a funny job, I think, I'd like to know if anybody has thoughts about this.

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 10:12 pm

The creaking sounds on at the front of my 480 only used to appear in dry weather too. It turned out to be the anti-roll bar links which had ceased. I replaced them, but I've since read that you can remove the rubbers, clean out the old gunky grease, lubricate them with something like WD40 to get them moving again, and then re-grease and re-fit the rubbers.

I thought ticking sounds that only happen when cornering were normally caused by worn CV joints? Wouldn't a wheel bearing make the noise all the time, and usually a squealing sound, rather than ticking?

Ben.

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 10:18 pm

my sisters wheel bearing made a godawful grinding noise, at least by the time she decided to bring it home and get me to look at it

turned out it had ground the hub away too.

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 10:20 pm

I've just had to have the wheel bearing and hub replaced on my 2.0ES. The strange thing was, I didn't realise it had gone until I jacked the car up and found the play in the wheel - It wasn't making any noise at all!

Ben.

tielrooy · Post by **tielrooy** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:53 pm

Ben,

That's a good suggestion about the anti-roll bar rubbers. I've taken a look and if I'm correct they are located in the engine compartment. Now I wonder which way I can remove and grease them. Do the wheels need to be on the ground or does the car need to be jacked? Both sides at the same time or is one side jacked also possible?

Thanks for the suggestions.

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 10:26 pm

The anti-roll bar itself runs through the engine compartment, but the links are under each wheel arch. Part number 18 in the diagram. You'll certainly need the car jacked up with the wheels off the ground! I also found it much easier to remove/refit them by putting another jack under the wishbone, and raising that a couple of inches - you'll see what I mean when you come to do it!

Ben.

jamescarruthers · Post by **jamescarruthers** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 11:03 pm

A quick blast from the past from what I remember when 480s were new-ish. My Dad had 1 (I think that star trek enterprise dashboard hooked me) and even when his '89 model was only a few years old I remember speed bumps caused those nasty "eeeK!" (does that describe it properly??!) noises.

I reckon that this is a weakness in the 480 because all parts were designed before speed bumps became as common as they are now in the UK (I hit like 30 a day and crawl over them like my car was lowered 90mm!).

Surely new cars are designed with this in mind but our beloved was designed for _flat_ roads and this is causing premature wear.

[Sadly F598 LNM is scrapped from what I can tell now. RIP]

On the note of my Dad having one when I was younger do any of the younger drivers here find that they caught the bug from the family member. I get that impression from a few posts. I certainly did.

Murf · Post by **Murf** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:37 am

my mum wanted a 480 but she couldnt have one cos of us three kids (only 2 back seats) so she got a 440 Turbo instead.
certainly driving that and feeling the power and kick from the turbo made me want that engine,also i prefered the shape of the 480 so i got a 480 turbo!
i also was pretty impressed by the dashboard/infocentre.
she was put off it by the usual 400 series faults (snapping wishbones,faulty speedo,refusing to start) but i am made of sterner stuff and in a sadistic kinda way actually enjoy fault finding/fixing!!

tielrooy · Post by **tielrooy** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 8:25 pm

Yes, Ben, I got it. I thought it was nr. 20 you were talking about. I'll probably give it a try this weekend.

kingrichy · Post by **kingrichy** » Sun May 23, 2004 3:44 pm

Does anybody know how much the anti-roll-bar links costs?
I have to replace them in the front and rear?

tielrooy · Post by **tielrooy** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 9:29 pm

It's been a while since I started this topic, but finally I found out and solved the problem. It turned out that the a piece of the spring was broken off. If you look at the picture, you can see the broken one on the right and a good one on the left. The bottom of both springs is in the same direction, so you can see how much is missing. It's a miracle that I didn't notice anything in driving except the sound.