Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

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Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

January 27, 2011, 06:14:43 PM

My car seems to be falling apart and I'm not sure where to look. Everything under the car still looks great, we've loosened, clean up threads, and retorqued bolts around the entire chassis including brakes, suspension, control arms, motor/trans mounts, and so on. As of today, I have the following issues that are VERY concerning:

1. Frontend sing noises when going over any rough road at a slow speed. I can't hear anything at higher speeds due to other noises. Driving over rough spots with both wheels, or one or the other does not sound any different. The noise sounds like something heavy and metal shifting around. Swarbar end links, mounts, etc look great and have low miles. The same can be said about all the new brakes, strut mounts, etc. Control arms are lower mileage but look new still - no rust and shops find nothing wrong with them. No play or worn out ball joints.

2. Once a week or so, during decel, I hear a faint, repeating popping noise coming from somewhere what is at something like 200ms intervals. Getting on the gas will pop once and it won't come back. U-joints low mileage and no detectable play. Rearend is rebuilt and makes no noises, other than potentially this if that is the cause. Rearend has dino oil and friction modifier.

3. Perhaps related number 3 above, most of the time if I coast and then press the gas more than lightly, I get a clunk and everything continues to go fine. This happens also if I'm going around a corner left or right and accelerate out of it. Direction does not seem to matter.

4. Yesterday, I started noticing that during light braking, I'm heaving a very light sing noise that comes and goes with each revolution. car doesn't brake unevenly in any way. During medium braking, I'm hearing a light clank each revolution. It does away if I let off the brake or press it harder. Brakes have a couple thousand miles at most, including the calipers, rotors, MC, booster, hoses, etc.

5. I now have creaking coming from the rear of the car that I can hear at low speeds. What can creak with everything being new and appearing to be structurally solid? Torque boxes?

Again, nearly the entire car, other than the chassis, has been replaced or upgraded. I'm not sure WHAT is coming from where now as everything was good for awhile but more and more things are making noises and nothing I can do seems to fix it. I've retorqued the k-member, used synthetic greases on everything attached to the chassis, and sprayed the heck out of other things with spray silicone lubricant or WD40 and the sounds don't seem to be going away. I've placed the car back on daily driver duty and these issues are all coming out of nowhere, along with now a whistling noise at the TB and a power steering pump pulley that isn't lining up like I've got a bent bracket. What are the likely causes of each of these sounds and good ways to verify whether the suggested cause is actually the cause?

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #1 – January 27, 2011, 07:59:56 PM

Whistle is some kind of air leak, probably in the air intake tube somewhere, maybe a vacuum port line leak. I had a light clunk on Rev up in park(And drive) and it turned out to be the PS pump had some play front to back(I think I overtightened the belt). I replaced it just in case.

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #2 – January 28, 2011, 01:05:30 AM

Yeah, I know the air leak sound. I figure I'll finally get around to putting my larger injectors, tb, and mass air sensor on and check out all the hoses and gaskets. The rest I'm a bit concerned about as it's slowly getting worse. I also don't want to go about replacing (again) my steering rack, strut mounts, tie rods, steering shaft just yet until I know for certain whether or not I have to do control arms again. I have some 03/04 Cobra a-arms already on hand for the need, whether it's this year or 5 years from now.

BTW, I'm now in Beaverton, just off of Bethany. Once I get things settled a bit, I'll have a garage to work in again! Don't have any tools, other than my small tool bag, here yet though - this weekend they'll be transported.

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #3 – January 28, 2011, 10:58:02 AM

For 2&3, my '85 has been doing this since I have had it, many years and more miles. It's never got worse or better, and the '87 Cougar does it as well. I always wonder about it, and every other month get under the car and check everything as well as when I do oil changes. It is important to make sure the four bolts on the back of the driveline are snug. They seem to back off every 15k miles or so. I should put some thread lock on them sometime I guess.

Mine mostly does this going down the highway though, and could be a completely different issue.
I read around for a similar issue, and found this:
http://www.coolcats.net/tech/troubleshooting/clunk.html

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #4 – January 28, 2011, 11:01:05 AM

Quote from: Seek;350994

2. Once a week or so, during decel, I hear a faint popping noise coming from somewhere. Getting on the gas will pop once and it won't come back. U-joints low mileage and no detectable play. Rearend is rebuilt and makes no noises, other than potentially this if that is the cause. Rearend has dino oil and friction modifier.

3. Perhaps related number 3 above, most of the time if I coast and then press the gas more than lightly, I get a clunk and everything continues to go fine. This happens also if I'm going around a corner left or right and accelerate out of it. Direction does not seem to matter.

did you check your motor mounts?
mine did this and moved soo much it took a chunk out of the battery, and sounded like it was coming from the rear of the car every time i got on the gas a bit.
there was what appeared to be a trail of oil leaking down my oil pan and initially i thought it was the oil pan gasket area untill i noticed the battery and realised the mount is fliud filled and that was what leaked down my oil pan.

just a thought...

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #5 – January 28, 2011, 02:34:35 PM

Have you checked to see if your K-Member is tight? Just shots in the dark here.

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #6 – January 28, 2011, 06:03:16 PM

I should add that #2, the popping is repeating during the coast and normally from like 40mph, down to like 10. Usually happens on the highway but that's also where I spend most of my time.

Motor mounts are Chuck's 5.0 motor mounts. I doubt they're making any special noises.

As for the k-member, first a shop backed off and retorqued the k-member last year but it didn't look clean so I cleaned up the area, pulled the bolts out, cleaned them and the threads up, and reinstalled with an impact. The front sing noise SEEMED to go away but I wasn't driving the car much. It came back a couple weeks, a few dozen miles, later. The noise isn't always there, it goes away 1/4 of the time and perhaps it's in my head, but during those times, the handling and suspension of the car feel great. That could just be me gritting my teeth when it IS making sing noises though, making me sit all tense and uncomfortable.

I will be moving my tools to the new house this evening so I'll get it back up in the air tomorrow.

I should add - I have a dull "whoop whoop whoop" sound coming from the back that just formed on coasting that sounds like it goes away when I press the brakes and I can't hear if it's there during acceleration. When pressing the brakes, I'm hearing something that sounds metal-like (#4 above) and like it'll be pretty obvious what it is when I get down there. I hope to move the wheels around to help better located that noise also. I don't think it sounds like tire. Too many things are all creeping up at once! I hope they're all related in some way and it isn't my transmission or rear end! I'd rather it be my Bilstein struts and shocks being bad.

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #7 – January 28, 2011, 06:35:31 PM

Oh, and while the transmission mount is low mileage, it's one of the stinky rubber ones you get from an auto parts store. I have a new second one somewhere I may try bolting on but lack of play makes me think this isn't the source of the clunks. There's clearance all around on the undercarriage and no marks that show anything rubbing, hitting, or sliding anywhere.

Creaks, sing, popping everywhere

Reply #8 – March 31, 2011, 12:56:29 AM

Quote from: Seek;350994

1. Frontend sing noises when going over any rough road at a slow speed.

This sound ended up being a front swaybar bushing that had to be removed, re-greased, and reinstalled.

The noise had gotten worse bad lately, but it seemed to get extremely bad on drives with more rough spots/speed bumps, going away after the car would sit overnight again. Medium to heavy rain would make the frontend dead quiet. Nice to know that another one of these noises are gone. Now to figure out the popping/clunk noises - the clunk is happening quite frequently now.