creaking/poping noise
 

when i turn or brake or make any sudden movements in my 87 944 i get a creaking noise or a poping noise coming from my passenger front area, im thinking its a balljoinnt. ive been told you have to replace the whole controll arm but ive seen balljoints by themselvs forsale. my understanding is that the origonal balljoints were rivited in but raplacements are bolt on? any help or tips would be greatly appreacheated.
-kevin

RE: creaking/poping noise
 

Hi Kevin,

First thing to do is to look under the car at the sway bar on the passenger side. You will see the main drop link coming off the passenger side frame. What happens is power steering fluid leaks down from the reservoir (leaking lines, etc), and drops directly onto that rubber bushing. It doesn't take long for the bushing to rot away, and eventually fall out of the sway bar. So what you would see is a metal ring around the sway bar, with no rubber bushing between the two. Without this bushing, as soon as you make a turn to the right or left, you will get a clunk or a pop.

If that is present, and looks fine, then you are probably right about the ball joint. If it is popping already, I gaurantee the control arm where the ball joint is damaged, cracked, or worn. A new balljoint won't help any, and you will need a new control arm. Vertex auto sells rebuilt arms for around 150. You normally can replace the balljoints in the aluminum control arms, but it is a bit of a process.

If you need a picture of what to look for, I can probably dig it up.

RE: creaking/poping noise
 

ok i got under the car, the swaybar rubber part is still there. the rubber in the mid part on the balljoint was broken open so i put a bunch of grease in there with a grease gun and the sounds stopped when i took it on a test drive. i looked very closely and could not find any damage on the control arm, what kind of damage shold i be looking for, cracking im assuming?

RE: creaking/poping noise
 

hey porsche doc.. i am experiencing the same problem but have no idea what to look for. would u still be able to dig up a pic? that'd be a huge help.. thanks..

RE: creaking/poping noise
 

You will not be able to notice the damage in the pocket of the control arm until you remove the ball joint unfortunetly. A rebuild kit will run you 59 bucks. It is a PITA to replace the joints, so I would just drop the 150 and get a fresh rebuilt unit from vertex.

Sway bar bushing that likes to disappear (red arrow). Granted, this is the drivers side, and typically the one on the passenger side is the issue. I think this was the first picture I ever took of my car....years ago, lol. What a pile it was.

http://karl.wilen.us/images/Bushings.JPG


Here is an example of a wallowed out control arm. Notice the left arrow the pocket has a nice wide area to it. The right arrow points to a much narrower surface. These should be the same. This is from a ball joint sitting in the arm banging around over time. I do have a cracked control arm in my garage at home (the wall of shame), I will try and take a picture of that as well, as it will show the cracks around the rim of the control arm pocket.
http://karl.wilen.us/images/ControlArm1.JPG

RE: creaking/poping noise
 

thank you very much. that is alot of help..

RE: creaking/poping noise
 

thanks man i really appreacheate it. haha im a little low on american dollars right now though so im going to pop out the joints and see what i can see anyway, but thanks for the link.
-kevin

RE: creaking/poping noise
 

I forgot, I have a ball joint kit at the shop, I can show you what the components are in relation to the control arm as well. I will try to do that in the morning.

Here is an example of a cracked ball joint pocket on a control arm as well. The bushings wear out internally, the pin bounces around metal on metal, and it only takes about a week of this kind of driving and this will happen.
http://karl.wilen.us/images/ControlArm.JPG