One day while driving hit a nice rough unpaved and potted spot on the road. Right away started getting a clunky rattle from the front left. I’m trying to pinpoint the issue but haven’t had luck yet. I bought new top strut bushings and went to put those in yesterday only to find they had been done fairly recently. Jacked up the car and if I grab the tire at 12 and 6 I get some play and a metallic doink back and forth. Nothing when I do 9 and 3. Tried to look at the suspension ball joints while moving the tire but couldn’t see anything. I’m wondering if the hub bearing is junk or not tight enough? Almost seems like the movement is between the disk and hub? I’m just hoping it’s not a motor or cradle mount... if I push on the top/quarter panel I can hear a slight clunk as well if I rock the suspension up and town. Any guesses?

 

I had the same issue and some nice person here mentioned that I should check the upper engine cross brace on that side, and sure enough it was loose. Made the same noise your describing,

 

Nice, I will give it a look. I rocked the wheel today on the ground it felt almost if lugnuts were loose. So I popped off the hub and took off the pin and cap. Grabbed the nut and it wasn’t tight at all. So I tightened it down and loosened it a bit so it wasn’t tight. The clunk went away when I rocked the wheel. Went for a drive and seemed better overall but still a bit of a rattle at times. Maybe the bearing needs a replacing and not a tightening...

 

Can you jack up the front in a way that lets the subframe mounts/wheels hang free? The actual subframe mounts are often over looked and cause alot of odd movements/noises when one fails or is in poor shape.

 

I Gave the front ones a quick glance today but nothing investigative. In reality the car is very nice for how cheap I got it, but chasing down rattles and creaks is a large pain with old stuff. I have similar suspension sounds on my bmw 633csi. I don’t want to just go replacing every balljoint and bushing but in reality I’m sure it would make the car feel like new and prob fix the noises. If only I had an endless supply of money.

 

I hear that, I’ve got a squeak in the drivers side rear, it’s causing no issue so for now it stays.

 

I would not drive on those bearings.

For a bearing to go loose while the nut is held steady with the pin in place requires the removal of hardened steel from somewhere. You can visually inspect them to see, but I probably wouldn’t bother to pull them without replacing anyway.

 

When I undid the nut and took the washer off the outer bearing just fell out. I’ve never done a car with this sort of bearing system so I’m not sure if that’s normal or not but I think it is? I didn’t see anything wrong with the bearing and the race was still in position and looked ok. The bearing was a Timken.. isn’t that an aftermarket unit?

 

Time to pull the hubs for a thorough tear down/clean/inspect/repack/adjust routine. Probably hasn't been done in eons. It's commonly neglected, unfortunately.

When you have the bearings out wipe them on a dark cloth. Any tiny metallic bits will be easy to see and indicate bearing replacement is called for

Cheers
DD

 

If the bearings are well greased then they usually won't just fall out. The grease sorta holds them in place after the washer and nut are removed, requiring that you wriggle the hub a bit to remove them.


I think Jaguar used Timken.

Timken is the good stuff! If you replace bearings you'll usually pay more for Timken.

Cheers
DD

 

Did a quick check and the engine brace was locked down good

 

Well an update for anyone with clunking and rattling in the front... make sure you have a damn bushing where it’s supposed to be!

front left sway bar bushing completely gone

 

Please report back after you replace. I hope that stops the sound.

 

Yep, it’s the issue... I had an old bushing from my bmw that was too small to fit on the jags bar... I cut it up and shoved it in there. I knew it would fall out but wanted to test the sound. It made it like 5 miles(not bad)... silent!

 

Nothing like lancing an irritating bugaboo like this...and its not an expensive fix. Sweet.