When I leave from a dead stop, I hear a knocking noise in the front right suspension. Its just a single knock, and only happens when going from a dead stop, or if you were in first gear coasting and you floored it. If I slowly let the clutch out, and gradually get the car moving, I can avoid hearing the knock. But when it happens I can feel it in the gas pedal and in the car (not a hard jolt, but enough to know that something knocked). Any ideas?

I think its the axle, my CV boot is busted open, and probably has no grease inside the boot anymore. Its only been like this for a month, tops, and I am getting new axles this week. But if it is not the axles, I need to know where to check.

Thanks for the help.

 

could be a broken tie rod or your axle.

 

tie rods not broken.

 

If the car has a front sway bar, check the end links

 

endlinks are ok, I dissassembeled them, re-greased the parts, re assembled them. Re-greased the sway bar bushings, and upper control arm bushings. Noise is still there.

 

Lower control arm bushings?

 

they have been inspected and are ok. The lca bushings wouldnt cause a knock like this unless they were binding. when the car was on stands we took a jack and moved the suspension up and down through its range of motion, and everything seemed to move fine (without any binding).

all signs point to axle so far.

 

any other ideas?

 

balljoint

/thread

 

My buddy has the same thing happening and he has a busted balljoint, we are not sure if thats it, he replaced it and it burst but there were doubts that it was seated right.
short version - check to see your ball joint is seated right and ok

 

maybe ur getting some play because the bearing is shot?

 

ball joint...interesting. I'll go check that now.

 

changing the ball joint today, I hope the noise goes away!

 

Sounds like upper ball joint to me. Just grab the stearing knuckle and pull back and forth. You can do this without being on jacked up. I replaced my upper left balljoint and my knocking sound is gone too (single knock under same circumstances). Upper ball joint requires whole new upper control arm.

 

I had a smiliar problem..and it ended up just being my wheel was loose...i know it sounds stupid and too simple..but check real quick if your wheels are loose.

 

car is too low to check upperball joint with car lowered, but if the noise persists i'll check the UCA.