Front wheel ticking after tyre change

[dekw]

Hi,
I'm after a bit of advice.
Had the front tyres replaced on my 156 today and on the way home I noticed a ticking noise coming from the nearside wheel.
The rate of the ticking increases with road speed and it seems to disappear when turning right.
Also there was occasionally a knocking sound when applying quite a bit of left hand lock.
Was too late to go back to the tyre fitters as it was just shutting when I left.
I plan to have a look at it tomorrow and see if any noise is present when rotating the wheel with the car on the jack, and try just removing and replacing the wheel to see if it solves itself
Any ideas on things to check, or to ask the guys at National to have a look at if I go back to see them about it?

Thanks
Derek

[MJK 24]

It's possible that the spalsh guard for the front disc has been bent and is now too close to the disc. This can happen if you don't take the wheel off cleanly and its weight falls onto the splash guard momentarily.

This happened to me on my Alfa 33 a few years back.

[dekw]

Thanks. Someone on the alfa156 forum also suggested possibly just a poorly positioned balance weight that is hitting the caliper so I'll check out both suggestions tomorrow and see what I find

[dekw]

Hi MJK (or anyone more knowledgeable than me),
Does the guard in this pic look a little bent or is that the normal shape?

Edited by dekw on Monday 2nd February 15:21

[RicksAlfas]

I'm pretty sure they normally sit parallel to the disk.
If you jack the car up and spin the wheel by hand you should be able to replicate the noise.

[dekw]

There is a scraping noise when I spin the wheel, but the balance weights look like they are too close to the edge of the rim and scraping on the upright so pretty sure that's at least part of the problem. I'm going to pop into the tyre fitter tomorrow and get them to reposition the weights and then I'll see if there'e any noise from the splash guard after that.

[GreenV8S]

dekw said:

but the balance weights look like they are too close to the edge of the rim and scraping on the upright

It would be surprising if the standard wheel was close enough to the upright to cause that, but even the witness marks on the weights aren't obviously showing it you could put some masking tape over them and take the car round the block. If the tape is still there, this isn't your problem.

[dekw]

Good idea, I'll try that. I thought of using chalk earlier but didn't have any to hand.
My initial thought was that the wheel wouldn't be that close to the upright either, but it does look quite tight when they're on, although obviously it's hard to see properly.

[Dave Brand]

Looking at the picture of the weights, there is marking on the right hand edges.

I don't know how much clearance there is on a 156, but I had problems with balance weights fouling on the caliper on my 145 (and on my Peugeot 405SRi). Using steel weights, as has been done on yours, contributes to the problem, as they are a little bit thicker than lead weights. I solved the problem on my 145 by asking the fitter to replace the steel weights with lead - as an extra precaution I had him flatten them a little before fitting.

Edited by Dave Brand on Monday 2nd February 16:58

[dekw]

Hmm, didn't notice the ticking noise at all on the way home from work, and it had been really quite noticeable yesterday, especially with the window open.
May just have been debris in the treads after all. I found a small piece of rolled up tin in the treads when I took the wheel off, which I had forgotten about as the scoring on the balance weights made me think that was definitely the problem. It was on the inside part of the tread so maybe turning right shifted the weight slightly to the outside edge causing the noise to stop.
Also didn't notice any knocking when making left turns although that had been more intermittent and with the bad weather and heavy traffic I couldn't really concentrate too much on listening for strange noises. I've read before on the alfa forum that occasionally front-end knocks can come and go when the car is jacked up and dropped again. I'll take it out for a spin later and see if I can hear anything but hopefully a false alarm. Thanks for the replies

[herbialfa]

I'd say its the weights!

Had a similar problem on my 147!

[dekw]

Yep - forgot to update my post. Heard the noise again on Tuesday morning so dropped by the tyre fitters and they moved the weights - problem solved.