Grinding/knocking noise while cornering right

Cus · Postby **Cus** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:55 am

I have a grinding/knocking noise while turning right.

I first noticed it just after new whees/tyre/brakes/lines, and thought it was some combination of those hitting, but I tried 16s on my car over the weekend, and the noise still persists - but now I know the sound, it is there while driving normally / straight / left - but it's much quieter and blends in with the general road noise. Passengers cannot hear it unless cornering hard right, but they don't spend as much time in my car as me....

The noise seems to get activated at a certain cornering load, cornering fast and gently does not induce the noise, but cornering slow and aggressively does (and fast and aressively). Accelleration/Coasting/Deceleration all have no effect on the noise, if you corner moderately hard, you get noise. I live on a busy 80km/h road, pulling out of my driveway can and will induce the noise if i'm slotting into a gap, for example.

I cannot feel any play in any of the wheels. All of my rotor stone shields have been checked and re-checked after the brake upgrade, it's not them. My rear sway bar rubbers are showing daylight, but I imagine I'd get a single clunk, not a constant grinding/knock from those. (Went to a car park, noise persists even when holding steady speed and steering in a circle) Someone suggested tie-rod ends, but there's no play in the steering (or anywhere in the suspension that I can find). It is not the exhaust (just installed a butterfly brace as well, goes close, but does not hit). It is not the new brake lines rubbing on anything either. Another person suggested the CV joints (or whatever they're called on a RWD car) but once again, I can't feel any play (And I imagine they'd be acceleration dependent noises) Having the car jacked up and rotating the wheels makes no noise (aside from caliper drag)

The only thing I can think of is a wheel bearing, but it hasn't failed completely yet. I was being fairly liberal with the brake cleaner while changing the brakes over, so possibly some got into a bearing and flushed the lube out?

Four different passengers have been no more effective in locating where the sound is actully coming from, we've decided it's the left of the car, I personally feel as though it's the rear, but we're at split votes for each end.

Is there any other low-hanging fruit to check before tackling the task of changing out the bearings/hubs and hoping that's the problem??

Vat · Postby **Vat** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 10:32 am

There was a discussion of fairly similar type symptoms on the Facebook page a few weeks back, and there was some agreeance that alignment bolts might be the issue. Mine makes a similar 'clicking' type noise, and having done brakes and coilovers, I'm pretty sure it's not those, and having gone over the bushings I'm confident it's not them, either.

I'm about to order some new alignment bolts and I'll get them put in over the coming weeks and report back.

RS2000 · Postby **RS2000** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:55 pm

Cus wrote:I cannot feel any play in any of the wheels.

If that's done by jacking up & pushing/pulling at top/bottom of wheel, then I don't think it would be wheel bearings or hubs.

Geordie · Postby **Geordie** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:28 pm

Cus wrote:I have a grinding/knocking noise while turning right.

I first noticed it just after new whees/tyre/brakes/lines, and thought it was some combination of those hitting, but I tried 16s on my car over the weekend, and the noise still persists - but now I know the sound, it is there while driving normally / straight / left - but it's much quieter and blends in with the general road noise. Passengers cannot hear it unless cornering hard right, but they don't spend as much time in my car as me....

The noise seems to get activated at a certain cornering load, cornering fast and gently does not induce the noise, but cornering slow and aggressively does (and fast and aressively). Accelleration/Coasting/Deceleration all have no effect on the noise, if you corner moderately hard, you get noise. I live on a busy 80km/h road, pulling out of my driveway can and will induce the noise if i'm slotting into a gap, for example.

I cannot feel any play in any of the wheels. All of my rotor stone shields have been checked and re-checked after the brake upgrade, it's not them. My rear sway bar rubbers are showing daylight, but I imagine I'd get a single clunk, not a constant grinding/knock from those. (Went to a car park, noise persists even when holding steady speed and steering in a circle) Someone suggested tie-rod ends, but there's no play in the steering (or anywhere in the suspension that I can find). It is not the exhaust (just installed a butterfly brace as well, goes close, but does not hit). It is not the new brake lines rubbing on anything either. Another person suggested the CV joints (or whatever they're called on a RWD car) but once again, I can't feel any play (And I imagine they'd be acceleration dependent noises) Having the car jacked up and rotating the wheels makes no noise (aside from caliper drag)

The only thing I can think of is a wheel bearing, but it hasn't failed completely yet. I was being fairly liberal with the brake cleaner while changing the brakes over, so possibly some got into a bearing and flushed the lube out?

Four different passengers have been no more effective in locating where the sound is actully coming from, we've decided it's the left of the car, I personally feel as though it's the rear, but we're at split votes for each end.

Is there any other low-hanging fruit to check before tackling the task of changing out the bearings/hubs and hoping that's the problem??

I had a similar problem and found it was not the outside wheel but the inside wheel bearing that was the problem. simple fix by replacing the bearings and if one is going then do both. Don't bother going to Mazda as they wanted over $800 for one, go straight to MX5 Mania and get two. Mine cost $148 each and they come as a complete hub. Mine is a 2002 NB.

Cus · Postby **Cus** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 12:33 am

I'm fairly convinced it's wheel bearings/hubs, so I got some new front hubs today - $55/ea at the local bearing shop, but it hasn't solved the issue, so they're getting rears in tomorrow for me ($49/ea).

Both of the front ones were fairly rough to turn (no side play, but a bit 'notchy'), so it was almost time to do them anyway - I only got fronts in a fit of wild optimism, changing the rears is apparently really really easy or really really not, depending on how the car feels.... :NA6:

Cus · Postby **Cus** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 3:16 pm

Well I'm rolling around on new bearings, a couple of them were due/nearly due for replacement, but they haven't solved my drama.

I did notice one side of my diff has had a slow oil leak for a while (dust+oil layers) so I'm about to see if there's any oil in there, or metal shavings, then put fresh oil in.

Cus · Postby **Cus** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 6:23 pm

Well, there was oil, and it looked pretty good/fresh, but the fill bolt was done up so hard I needed a 4ft breaker bar on it.... :shock:

There were surprisingly few little metal shavings on the magnet on the plug, with the exception of one half-mm shaving of chromey-looking-stuff. I suspect the PO changed the oil to delay a failure while the car was selling...

Any suggestions as to where I can take my car to have someone that knows MX5s to take a look/listen? I'm out of my depth here, and It's starting to drive me batty, I'll drive across the country if I have to - but central victorian shops are preferred.

Cus · Postby **Cus** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:58 am

Ended up taking the car to Mania, they put it up on the hoist, rocked the engine around, and deduced it was the cat hitting the butterfly brace.

I feel like an idiot, but I'm happy it's fixed.

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 5:27 am

YOU think you're an idiot??

I subscribed to this thread because I had the same issue of a harsh scraping / grinding noise when turning sharply right.

Safety first and all, so I avoided the car like the plague till I knew what the problem was..

Wound up taking the car to Mania where David popped a jack under it and deduced that it was the remnants of my guard liner (that I had cut to make way for my oversized track Tyres that scrubbed too much...)

they were scraping against the tyre when turned sharply right. Did the old Gaffer tape routine and problem fixed. I tried using zip ties but it was too complicated for me :oops:

Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe..

StanTheMan · Postby **StanTheMan** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:01 am

Ha, ha man. Don't worry we've had some real funny ones over the years. It's a good laugh when it does happen.
One dearly beloved member car had stopped. He immediately thought either the cam belt or woodruff key. Can't recall exactly but something fairly serious. So another member drove something like 2 hrs across Brisbane to help him out. He'd run out of petrol.

StanTheMan · Postby **StanTheMan** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:18 am

Although not quite as funny another member tried to do an internal engine clean. Got compression lock up. Bent all his rods. He was pretty shitty. Eventually saw the funny side. But he rebuilt the engine or did an engine swap on a Gold Coast Dodgy day.

bruce · Postby **bruce** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:00 pm

^ I remember that!

tbro · Postby **tbro** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 8:31 pm

StanTheMan wrote:Although not quite as funny another member tried to do an internal engine clean. Got compression lock up. Bent 2 of his rods. He was pretty shitty. Eventually saw the funny side. did an engine swap on a Gold Coast Dodgy day.

BUT there was a good side to it.

RIP UA

Terry

Black_Penguin · Postby **Black_Penguin** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 9:29 pm

There was a guy on a VW forum who tried to port and polish the head of his engine by pouring sand into the intake of the running engine... which wasn't running for much longer.