I'm still looking for that driveline bearing noise that starts off slowly as a slight dampened chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp sound, that builds into a droney hum sound at 80kmh in the back ground.

I don't think it's brakes because I had rotors replaced and machines and pads renewed all around 2 weeks ago. The front wheel bearings have been repacked, and are only about 1 year old. The original ones were blue from heat stress and seizing apparently.

My first question. How freely are the wheels supposed to be able to be moved when spun by hand off the ground.
I've just jacked the car up to spin each wheel independently to listen for noises. Each wheel is slightly gripping at the same point on each revolution. They don't spin easily, and stop straight away when I stop spinning them.
Each rear ones make a soft chomp, chomp, chomp grinding noise (like sand paper on wood), coming from the center of the wheels themselves. I can't tell whats happening with the diff. Could be that it's quiet?

The front passenger wheel is slightly noisier. It produces a slight chomp, chomp, sound but also a slight mechanical knock at each 5 or so revolutions. There is also a millimeter of play when I gently rock the wheel back and forth on the hub. That mechanical knock sound followed by a tiny creak happened again when I let the jack back down on that wheel. Could that be suspension or shocker related?

- These sounds were all blamed on tyres originally, but the sound is still present after new quieter tyres. And my sisters EL is as quiet as anything, hers doesn't do it -

Cheers all.

Anyone able to shed some light on the above. Just need some leads and a ballpark idea of where to get the guy to look first. Otherwise big bucks to get someone to go over the whole car..

Cheers

wheels bearings??

Sounds like wheel bearings all round and front bearing seals also could be tailshaft uni joints.

I replaced the rack ends and the clunking and creaking went also alot less road noise from the front end.

If you find it more in 4th gear its likely to be torque converter lock up noise. its gets worse as the trans is older and when the extension casing bush wears.
Most of the AU, all BA wagons and 2WD territory have slip yoke dampners fitted to absorb this noise.

did you replace the whole wheel bearings cones and all a year ago or just re pack them? after replacing wheel bearings you should re adjust them after they bed in.

Thanks guys. Wheel bearinf replaced, not sure about cones.

How freely are you supposed to be able to spin the wheels when there jacked up anyway. Should they be completely quiet when spinning them, like zero rubbing sounds?

if wheel bearing are replaced cones and all should be replaced..

try adjusting them again.
1 - tighten adjusting nut to 23-34nm
2- back adjust nut off 1/2 turn
3- tighten adjusting nut to 1.1-1.7nm
4- install lock and new cotter pin

thats what the workshop manual recomends.

Thanks for the info. It gives me points to eliminate.
Ford want to take $95 just to have a look around.

I just need to know how much noise I should accept as normal, when spinning the wheels around by hand. And how free are they supposed to be to spin around?

Ta.

i wouldnt like any noise in the fronts as a rule of thumb they should spin a full turn or 2 if they are grabbing in the same spots sounds like warped rotors aswell but in the rear its hard to hear the noise because of the diffbut an easy way to check fronts is drive about 60kph and gently swerve to left and right and if you get noise in the fronts turning its ya bearings on the opposite side to what your swerving as your loading up the bearing

from memory when my front wheels are off the ground give it a spin and spins no more then 1-2 revolutions. there should be no noise when spinning by hand. if it feels hard to spin noisy and lumpy they are too tight and need adjustment. once had a stuffed wheel bearing on my car sounded like a kind of humming noise from the front at speeds greater then 60.

You can tell if the front bearings are over tightnened by a discolor in the cones. a simple way of tensioning bearings if you dont have a torque wrench is to firstly tighten the bearings while spinning the rotor to a firm tension then back off, then with a breaker bar let it sit at about 1 o'clock and then let it fall on its own weight. that will be close to what u want. just make sure the bearing seal is seated propely as u will never get the correct tension(pre load)

What do you mean by the rack ends???? The steering arm boots????

If the wheel bearings are seated properly at installation, they don't need adjusting. It's a sign of a crap job if it needs the wheel bearings adjusted.

The procedure for seating taper roller bearings is the same for any equipment. The pre-loads might change, but the seating procedure is the same and in any circumstance, a bearings should not need adjusting shortly after being installed.

If I had to do that to all the gearboxes I assembled, I'd go broke.... especially when we're talking up to $130,000 for a gearbox with $2500 freight each way.

Just like people don't expect to pay $130,000 for a gearbox and after 4 hrs running, it needs to come back to me to get a nut tightened, people also don't expect that they have to take their car back to the mechanic after a tank of petrol to get a nut tightened.

1mm is, if anything, too little clearance in the bearing. The diameter of the wheel is with a 205/65/15 is approx 650mm. The diameter of the bearing is about 50mm.

So if you've got about 1mm movement of the wheel, you've got about 1/13th that movement @ the bearing, or about 0.076mm, or 3 thou for the old school boys.