Hi, Starting to chase my tail a bit on the Corrado. I'm getting an occassional clonk/clink from the front in sceanrios like - reversing up a drive where you go forward, turn, reverse and turn and it clonks (sometimes). - pulling out of a junction - giving way on a side street and pulling out to go again - clonk. I can't make the car do it to test or record but it happens on every drive. It started happening after I had a decent garage change on the front wheel bearings, install 288 calipers (big redd refurb) and new flexi lines. I didn't fancy the job as the last 5x100 car i worked on it was impossible to remove the drive shaft from the hub insert and I have used the garage for the car in the past extensive work such as chains and headfurb and will possibly have to make the trip back - 100 miles - if i can't solve. I don't feel the noise through the steering or pedals. Up front the car has had in the last 4000 miles / 3 years New engine mounts R32/LCR rear wishbone bushes ARB bushes inc drop links inner and outer track rods Over the last 2 mths, and since the noise appeared it has had front bearings hubs top mounts new H&R springs new top spring plates* new driveshafts new ball joints new arb drop links regreased the pads with cermaic grease greased the slide pins with TRW stuff as they were dry I have checked everything i can for movement and have none - pry bar, 9/3 and 12/6 on the wheels. All parts i try buy the best brand i can - Lemforder, Meyle, FAG. The driveshafts I went J&R but the issue continues with them installed. I'm a bit OCD and use a torque wrench on everything. Intially I thought the pads were getting stuck so tried that first. I then suspected top mounts and found the issue (*) below. Yesterday I was certain it was perhaps the drive shafts, they were original looking with VW stamps etc so have done 155k. But disappointingly on a drive out today that is not my issue. All I have left that appears original to the car is the steering rack and the front wishbone bush. So what would a failure of those components be like? *I changed the top spring plates becuase they had been installed upside down, not by me or my usual garage but somewhere i used when i first bought the car. As a result they had been bent out of shape and were causing lateral movement on the shock (lateral movement no longer happens when the car is jacked up checking for play). I also found the bush nut was not used and instead the a standard nylock nut was being used in it's place to sit on top of the bearing. The shock is a bilstein b8 and isn't visibly damaged or leaking but could this be my issue. It will have done 5000 miles under incorrect installation.
Hmm, was going to suggest 2 things, first was pad movement, a tiny bit of vertical freeplay in them, or one side. Or, which I had on the A4, which I know is slightly different in front suspension like your exeo, is one of the bottom wishbone joints, mine did it, got diagnosed as cv joint, but it made no difference, so changed one arm that had what looked like normal movement and it cured it, although the new owner had the noise return after a couple of months, and it was the new bush fail again. Other thing that I've had is a nut on the shock work lose ever so slightly and the movement clunk seems to get amplified, again on the A4 rear when a standard nut replaced with a nylock. Not a great help, but just experience.
Cheers Dodgy that is helpful! Got a bit frustrated with the thing and fear I am falling into that trap of replacing parts for the sake of it...it is a good job this car has a special place in my heart. Perhaps I should look at those pads again. I cleaned off the copper grease and used ceramic grease as someone suggested it was the dogs danglies but I didn't check the pads for vertical movement. The calipers were refrub'd with electroplate as the final coat rather than paint which hopefully is a thinner. I did note the outer pads were quite tight on the carrier iirc correctly but would need to check that again as I might be thinking of a different car (done the brakes on the Exeo and the mk3 since) - could the ears of the pad need a file down and being too tight on the carrier might cause a clonk? Interesting I experience it infrequently and usually straight after the brakes have been applied. I feel like I probably should put a poly bush in the front location of the wishbone as it looks original and I want to get an alignment and don't want to spend out on getting that done lots of times.. but throwing money down the drain if it's not faulty - I've just got my eldest to rock the steering at standstill whilst I looked at the wishbone bushes and saw no real movement. The shock nut is a now a nylon. Part of me is concerned the shock itself might be damaged as the spring plate had been installed upside down for such a long time & the bush bolt above bearing was instead a nylon bolt. When I fixed it the steering so much smoother. The shock would have had side to side play movement. Visibly it looked fine without leaks and requires lots of effort to push down. No damage to he top part where the spring plate sits.
What's the rack like? I've changed the track rods on my mk2 twice due to track width changes, plus the polo as had an advisory 2 years ago, and have the tool to do it on car from years ago and my clio van. The state of the polo ones shocked me when came out, they were so sloppy it was worrying. The track rods were between 10 and 20 quid each, may even be able to change with a big spanner on vw stuff.
The rack is original and not been restored - 155k on it. The inner and outer track rods are about 3 years old / I guess 4k. There isn't any play when tugging on the track rods and steering wise it is smooth. Im not sure what a dying rack might feel like though?
Yeah this car has had a lot of work done over the last 5 years/5000 mile The only untouched areas are bottom end of engine, steering rack, cross member bushes. The issue developed after the 288s and bearings were fitted but I know how hard the driveshafts can be to remove from hub so thought maybe the driveshaft was damaged on removing.. or something else.
I had similar issues when fitting new pads and the calipers had wear where the pads slide onto the carriers. Also cheap pads are inherently smaller due to lesser quality control and as the stamping tooling wears the factory prefers to make them a fraction smaller to allow for electroplating. If not a good brand: ATE, Textar or Pagid then I would just replace the pads and make Sure the spring clips are not slack !
maybe the outer cv joints were tugged off the shaft a bit, and just need a good tap to fully seat over the circlip?
Just to update on this. Fitted new driveshafts and ARB drop links and general check over for loose-ness but nothing. The only thing I found was the cheap pads were loose in the carrier where as pagid replacements were tigher. The outer is still loose up and down movement (not as bad a cheap pads) but the inner pad is tighter to the carrier. I still get 1x clonk that sounds just like the video when say reversing but now very intermittent. I've bought some second carriers and noted on my mk3 is is also in bits that the carrers did not have any up and down movement. They are colour coded to the caliper so I've bought some spare carriers to refurb and try on the corrado and fingers crossed it solves the issue. Blue Line pads: https://youtube.com/shorts/WPU7Pf55eKo?feature=share Pagid pads - better: https://youtube.com/shorts/v51F4uIMY5U?feature=share
Solved this it was the top mount top cap - pictured. Bilstein shocks have a wider thread than stock and dont pass through the hole in this cap cleanly. I thought it was normal to thread this piece on but on getting replacements they slot on with ease and allow proper tightening of the top mount. Simple really and could have just drilled out this piece.
