2003 Ford KA Front spring replacement, Knocking problem

Seems strange to me that the top bearing would have any play whatsoever. It is that which limits the downward travel of the strut assembly, as well as taking the more normal upwards and sideways loads.

Ball joints are sometimes fluid filled to allow some controlled compliance. But this feels different to ordinary play through wear.

you do get a bit of play in the top shock mounting as there is no load on it. why did you take it off from the ball joint ? you only need to take out the strut mounting bolt & lever the hub down. Was there any play noted in the anti-roll bar link ?

I took off the bottom ball joint as the Haynes manual said to, however as you said, I have since realised there was no need!

The struts have to rotate when you turn the wheel so something's got to give a little, I'm not familiar with a Ka and how much movement there should be however.

Is the spring seated properly in the seats at the top and bottom of the strut?

The balljoint does sound a bit suspect, did you use a lever or a balljoint separator? Depending on the design, you could have inadvertantly damaged it. You may also have disturbed wishbone bushes when you pushed the wishbone out of the way.

Personally, if I found a sloppy balljoint I'd be inclined to replace anyway.

Was the noise definitely not present before the work?

Was the spring's break just a few cm at the end or did it collapse while underway and damage something in the process?

Did any contamination/grot get into the caliper or damage the brake disc?

There was definetly no noise prior to replacing the spring, its very obvious now. The spring snapped close to the bottom so the car was only sitting a couple of cm lower. I double checked the spring was seated correctly at both ends. We used a large pry bar to lever the bottom ball joint out of the hub carrier although it didnt take excessive force to lift it out.

I'm thinking of nipping to the local autofactors in the moring and buying a complete new lower arm, i think they are only about =A315.

I dont beleive anything has contaminated the disc/caliper but I will be removing the brakes tomorrow and inspecting everything.

Thanks for the responces so far,

Rob

Is the knocking wheel speed related? If so, could you have damaged the CV joint?

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The OP mentioned that it happened during braking, so perhaps that's unlikely?

It's hard to diagnose without a better description of the noise; is it a regular knocking noise, or just a single clonk when the brakes are first applied?

Chris

Ah, missed that. Less likely, for sure.

Indeed. A regular knock would point towards brakes perhaps, a simgle on likely to be a joint or bush with play.

The noise was regular.

Anyway I went out and bought a new lower arm this morning plus I got a drop link as it was only a fiver and I read somewhere it could be a problem.

We fitted the above, checked the disk/pads and cleaded the disc itself. Upon driving the car the noise has now gone. The ball joint was very loose plus there was a slit in the rubber cover.

The top of the strut however still baffles me as I've never seen on that has so much play until the wheels are on the ground. Both sides are the same as mentioned before(we havent touched the other side). Here's a video of the top of the strutt while my dad pushed/pulled on the strutt assy with the car off the floor.

I did notice that the car now tends to drift a little to the left when you either dip the clutch or back off the power. Could this be down to the tracking now being out with the spring/wishbone being replaced or just that things are settling down?

Thanks for the replies so far.

Rob

The noise was almost certainly the ball joint. The split boot would fail next year's MOT, so was worth doing anyway.

They do move a bit when unloaded.

Link doesn't work for me.

You need to get the tracking done in any case after this work, so just see how it is after that.

Chris

as I said in my previous post you will get some lift as the top strut mount isnt loaded with the weight of the vehicle on it, in fact when Ka's are mot'd, the check sheet is printed with the amount of movement that is acceptable. did you tighten the suspension arm bolts that go through the subframe with the weight of the vehicle on it or tighten them up 1st before dropping the vehicle down on to its wheels ? I know its fitted now, but the lower suspension arms are different, it depends wether it has power steering or not, but the supplier should have asked this. If the wrong one is fitted it will wander, I know this as I fitted one once & found out it had been labelled wrong ! but I would get the tracking checked just in case its the tracking that is causing the problem.

We torqued the 2 lower arm bolts up while the car was in the air, was either 38/45 ft/lb plus a further 90 degrees.(Haynes didnt mention how the suspension should be loaded)

The supplier did ask me if the car had power steering prior to supplying the part which it has so can only assume I got the right one.

I wondered if the slight wandering would be due to one side of the car being much stiffer that the other due to it having a new spring/lower arm fitted?

I am planning on replacing the other spring/lowerarm over christmas when I have plenty of free time, this side was just done due the broken spring.

Not sure what could be wrong with the video link above as it works on both my PC/laptop with me signed out of photobucket.

Thanks again

Rob

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What OS and browser?

I'm on Linux and Firefox 8.0 here.

Chris

It's quite likely the toe in/out could do with adjusting now, you've introduced quite a few potential changes.

Hmm, in the grand scheme of the weight of a car, I'd be surprised if it was 'much' stiffer. I like to replace things like springs in pairs however. I don't have any sound reasoning why. Suspension arms would bother me less but it won't do any harm.

I saw the video OK, but the photobucket site appears to use some fancy HTML/Javascript/Flash gubbins, some of which might not have worked properly for some people, I browse with some of that stuff disabled for instance but can turn it on as and when required.