E39 suspension gremlin

[SuperHangOn]

Bit of an odd one this. The car is fine until its been running for 1/2hr to an hour or so then the front right wheel/suspension area starts rattling/creaking quite badly. This is even over fairly flat road.

I will jack it up and have a look but any ideas what to look for?

Usually with cars its the other way round - the noise goes once the car is warmed up.

Thanks


Its a V8 BTW

[SuperHangOn]

Just the replies I was hoping for, cheers all!

Have ordered a TRW centre rod and Lemforder tie rods (from ECP as had cash sitting around in my paypal).

This is the sort of problem where you can waste a small fortune changing perfectly decent parts, and taking the car to a garage rarely increases the odds either, you just get a second punch for labour. I will settle for an educated guess!

[SuperHangOn]

FunkySon said:

We have success!

It took me about 3 hours, all told. Once I'd got the old centre link out it was clear that it was well past its best - the passenger side ball joints had seized and the one on driver's side, that was making the noise, moved in some directions but jammed in others - hence the creaking / cracking noise I was getting I suppose.

I couldn't separate the centre link from the pitman / idler arms on the car so took them all out together. Once off the car I then had plenty of spade to get a ball joint splitter on them with the assistance of a big hammer. Despite measuring everything I still needed a trip to Kwik Fit to get the tracking adjusted but now that's done the steering is much sharper and, of course, creak free.

Thanks again to Tom for taking the time to post. Hopefully OP has had similar success.

Duncan

Congrats!

Another result here.

Noises have gone and it feels much tighter. I got a mechanic mate to fit the parts so I can't say how hard the job was. Just need to get the tracking done now.

Cheers for all the help folks


On to the PCV...