OK, I've had my '69 Beetle for a year now. When I first bought it, there was a fairly loud scratchy, squeaky noise out of the front end, especially as the suspension went through it's travel say over a speed bump or hump in the road. You could also hear the noise, minimally, when turning the wheels, too.
After a month or so, I decided I should probably lube up the torsion bars. The Beetle was fitted with an aftermarket A/C unit and the condensor coil assembly was mounted in the space in front of the axle beam, preventing access to the passenger side grease nipples on the axle beam. I removed the condensor coils and boxed them up for a possible future project (the A/C doesn't work, anyway). Then, I greased up the beam really well, pushing out a fair amount of grease from each of the four tube ends. Still noisy, so I left it alone for a few months to see if maybe the noise would eventually subside.
Still noisy, so a couple weeks ago, I decide to jack the front end up and take a good hard look at everything. Well, all four of the balljoints had split boots on them and they're all dry. Since I was nearly out of grease, anyway, I dropped by the auto parts store and picked up a couple tubes of grease and an 18 gauge grease injection needle. I pumped a bunch of grease inside the balljoint boots as well as all the steering linkage boots (they're still in good shape). I worked the suspension around quite a bit, lowered the car back down and took it for a test drive.
Well, I still have the noise in the front end. It has only subsided a little. If you grab the front bumper and move the front end of the car up and down, it still has a fair amount of squeak. The steering is a little easier, however.
What do you think? New ball joints all the way around? Anything else?
TIA,
Malcolm '69 Beetle (Gus) '71 Super Beetle (Herbie)