I hear you knockin'

A few weeks ago I noticed some knocking from passenger side wheel everytime I went over a reasonably sized hole in the road. It gradually got worse to include much smaller holes and even slightly uneven road surfaces. Took it to my local Volvo specialist who promptly tightened up the wheel bearing and changed the bushes on the anti roll bar and the one at the bottom of the shocker. Drove home seemed not too bad but was still doing it. Took it back to the chappie who fixed it and told him the same was still happening. "Ok leave it with me." Said Volvo chappie. Two days later I get a call to say that he "can't find anything wrong with it and is totally stumped." So I still have the knocking and it is just getting worse everyday, and barring fitting a new steering rack and shocker is there anywhere else I should be looking?

Here's hoping someone else has had the same / similar problem.

Oh it's a 93 240 torslanda
Thanx
Pesky

[Clifford Pope]

There are 3 points of wear in the lower front suspension.
The ball joint at the bottom of the strut, the inner wishbone bushes, and the doughnut bushes at the point where the drag link(is that what it's called?) runs aft to a fastening on the chassis member.
The latter would be my first choice to look at, if the ball joint has been eliminated as the cause. It can be quite hard to detect, because of the forces on the whole system. Jack up the car with the jack under the end of the wishbone, so that the suspension is in its normal compressed state, and then try levering the link backwards and forwards with a crow bar or big screwdriver.
If you jack under the jacking point the suspension hangs taught and play gets masked.

Also try waggling the wheel side to side, and watch or have someone watch the outer track rod end, and the inner ball joint on the rack. Both those can wear and cause knocks, but are replaceable. Finally check for movement in the rack mounts, and play in the rack outer bearings.

Also check the monting rubbers for the anti-roll bar, and the links to the wishbone. Or the telescopic tube or the top mounting or bearing.


A lot of things to go wrong - you just need to work through them systematically, with the suspension in different degrees of compression.