Creaky suspension
 

A couple of days ago my front left corner began to creak and squeak.
Quite a lot, actually. It's noisy both when bouncing the corner of the
car and when steering side-to-side, so I figure a ball joint of some
sort.
So, here's the question: is this merely noise, or is it (I'm afraid)
a symptom of a joint beginning to grind itself away and asking for
replacement?
'97 Honda Accord, a little over 100,000 miles on it.

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
http://web2.airmail.net/thegoat4/

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:35:26 -0600, B.B. u> wrote:
> A couple of days ago my front left corner began to creak and squeak.
>Quite a lot, actually. It's noisy both when bouncing the corner of the
>car and when steering side-to-side, so I figure a ball joint of some
>sort.
> So, here's the question: is this merely noise, or is it (I'm afraid)
>a symptom of a joint beginning to grind itself away and asking for
>replacement?

Probably a blown strut. If you push on the corner of the car and release,
does it oscilate up'n'down more than once?

B.B. wrote:
> A couple of days ago my front left corner began to creak and squeak.
> Quite a lot, actually. It's noisy both when bouncing the corner of the
> car and when steering side-to-side, so I figure a ball joint of some
> sort.
> So, here's the question: is this merely noise, or is it (I'm afraid)
> a symptom of a joint beginning to grind itself away and asking for
> replacement?
> '97 Honda Accord, a little over 100,000 miles on it.
>

Creaks can often come from bushings that have deteriorated. I recently
put new dampers and springs on my '91 Civic and it is still creaky. I am
going to replace all the bushings (many are literally rotting & falling
apart), but its going to be a gradual process because it is a lot of
work. I would think dry ball joints will fail pretty quickly, so check
them for play in the near future.

Mark

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:30:36 -0600, Chopface > wrote:

||B.B. wrote:
||> A couple of days ago my front left corner began to creak and squeak.
||> Quite a lot, actually. It's noisy both when bouncing the corner of the
||> car and when steering side-to-side, so I figure a ball joint of some
||> sort.
||> So, here's the question: is this merely noise, or is it (I'm afraid)
||> a symptom of a joint beginning to grind itself away and asking for
||> replacement?
||> '97 Honda Accord, a little over 100,000 miles on it.
||>
||
||Creaks can often come from bushings that have deteriorated. I recently
||put new dampers and springs on my '91 Civic and it is still creaky. I am
||going to replace all the bushings (many are literally rotting & falling
||apart), but its going to be a gradual process because it is a lot of
||work. I would think dry ball joints will fail pretty quickly, so check
||them for play in the near future.

If it's a Macpherson strut front-end, you may just need upper strut mounts.
These include a bearing which can fail and squeak. It's a relatively simple
replacement, although it usually requires a spring comrpessor.
Texas Parts Guy

In article
>,
"B.B." u> wrote:

> A couple of days ago my front left corner began to creak and squeak.
>Quite a lot, actually. It's noisy both when bouncing the corner of the
>car and when steering side-to-side, so I figure a ball joint of some
>sort.
> So, here's the question: is this merely noise, or is it (I'm afraid)
>a symptom of a joint beginning to grind itself away and asking for
>replacement?
> '97 Honda Accord, a little over 100,000 miles on it.

Rex's guess was right--the mounting point of the strut was the
squeaky part. And it only squeaked while the weather was cold. After
everything warmed up a bit the squeak went away, but returned after last
night's chill.
I'm going to let it go until it begins to squeak even when it's warm.

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
http://web2.airmail.net/thegoat4/