Steering Wheel Knock Sound

[Bhatti, Mohammed]

Thought I'd update this.

The shakes got so bad that I decided to drop off the car at a place close to
work.  They told me the struts were bad (as per list suggestions) and the
outer cv joint was toast.  I asked them to replace the struts since I had
little inclination of doing this myself.

I decided to do the cv joint myself since I had recently replaced the cv
boot on the other side.  I oredered a used one from Chris at Force5.  Always
great service.

What a surprise when I dismantled the old cv joint.  One of the ball
bearings was missing and the housing that holds the missing ball bearing had
cracked.  Can't believe I had been driving around with it like this.  The
axle shaft surprisingly was in very good condition.  I had expected to find
chunks of the end bitten off or missing due to the very bad cv joint but was
surprised that things were ok.

Anyway, things are back in place and the car is back to normal.

Thanks to Jim Accordino, George Harris, Ben Walker and Bob.

Thanks

mohammed
88 80q


-----Original Message-----
From: Bhatti, Mohammed
To: 'james accordino '
Cc: 'audi list '
Sent: 1/2/2003 10:52 AM
Subject: RE: Steering Wheel Knock Sound

Jim,

I appreciate the detailed response.  I have yet to re-check things out.
Things have been pretty busy at home with all the er...bowl games I have
been watching.

Anyway, I plan on getting around to this as soon as they stop playing
those damn games.

Thanks again.  I'll keep you posted as to what I find out.

mohammed
88 80q

-----Original Message-----
From: james accordino
To: Bhatti, Mohammed
Cc: audi list
Sent: 12/31/2002 5:03 PM
Subject: RE: Steering Wheel Knock Sound

No only the mount.  This is a steel plate bolted to
the strut tower with 3 nuts.  The top of the strut rod
passes through the center metal bushing with a large
washer and nut on top.  This can be replaced without
either replacing/removing the strut or trashing your
alignment.  Carefully mark its position before
removing.  Although, if it's really hosed, you
probably need an alignment anyway, because it's surely
out of spec.  "Leaning in."  The struts, if original
are now hosed as well.  BUT... often times you get the
$69. brake job deal.  Like they just jam the pistons
back and put on pads.  Same deal here.  They may have
replaced your struts (cartridges) without doing ANY
hardware or "soft" parts.  VERY common.  On the wheel
bolts, I never used to care, now I check them all the
time with the torque wrench when I get home.  Too
loose, too tight.  Usually pretty good though, cause
they use the "torque stick."  Some sh*t they stick on
the end of the air gun.  As long as they pick the
right one off the chart, the #'s are usually right
there.

Jim Accordino

--- "Bhatti, Mohammed" <Mohammed.Bhatti at si-intl.com>
wrote:
> Jim,
>
> That I didn't check.  Ok, assuming that I have a
> problem here, do I need to
> replace the struts?
>
> Loose wheel bolts i.e. I didn't need monkey lad
> brute force strength to
> loosen the wheel bolts.  They came loose fairly
> easily, more so than I had
> expected especially after having taken the car to
> the local tire shop to
> have the tires balanced.
>
> And now that I think about it some more, the
> steering wheel knock sound was
> more of a clunk.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the advice.  I'll be looking into
> this some more.
>
> mohammed
> 88 80q
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: james accordino
> To: Bhatti, Mohammed; 'George Harris ';
> 'quattro at audifans.com '
> Sent: 12/28/2002 1:35 AM
> Subject: RE: Steering Wheel Knock Sound
>
>
> --- "Bhatti, Mohammed" <Mohammed.Bhatti at si-intl.com>
> wrote:
> > only thing that I noticed was that the wheel bolts
> > were a tad loose.
>
> Loose wheel bolts?  Yikes!
>
> > I
> > re-tightened the strut housing bolts and checked
> all
> > the other bolts.
> > Re-mounted wheels and re-tightened.
>
> I'm pretty sure he was talking about tears in the
> rubber of the strut mount which will allow metal to
> metal contact.  Usually the steel bushing to the
> cutout.  Turn it to lock and look carefully at the
> rubber of the mount under the little plastic cover.
> (If they're still there.)
>
> Jim Accordino


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