Not suspension or steering at all?
Well this afternoon I decided to tackle to ties rods. I haven't ordered the parts at all, but I thought I 'd start by taking it all to bits so that I could be sure of getting the right parts.
Although there is play in the inner tie rod, it is minuscule, and it's hard to believe that it would cause a noise.
But what I did notice is that if the NSF wheel is turned gently in either direction there's a definite clunk that can be felt throughout the suspension strut. It struck me that perhaps the noise is brake pad-related, so I whipped off the caliper - and bingo - the clunk is gone.
I decided that I'd clean up the caliper and pads, apply some brake grease and put it all back. With this done the little clunk was still there, so I had a closer look at the slider pins. The lower one was a tight fit, but the upper one was quite sloppy as it sat in its bore. I swapped them round to see if this made any difference, but still the upper one was quite loose. This I guess confirmed that it's the upper bore that's oversized, rather than a pin being undersized.
So I packed the upper bore with brake grease, carefully slid the pin back into place, dropped the caliper back and tightened and cleaned everything up. The result is a decided absence of a clunk when the wheel is gently rotated.
This pin being loose effectively means that the caliper isn't 100% tight, and will move a little. I've yet to try driving the car - tea and a nice drop of Merlot were waiting, and far too good to resist. But I do now wonder if all those fears for tie-rods and possibly even a new rack are groundless, and the real answer is a slightly sloppy pin?
The real question is, what do I do about it?
Do I swap out the caliper carrier? Do I get some new pins? Do I simply keep the pin well-greased?
One thing that right now I'm very happy about is the fact that I haven't spent any money on new tie-rods and track rod ends that quite possibly are not needed.
We'll see what a drive tomorrow brings!
Jack
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