I just recently replaced my front upper and lower ball joints, and now I have a tick now like the brake dust shield is rubbing up against the brake rotor on my drivers side, it seems to happen the wheels are turned all the way to the right once it starts I can straiten the wheels and it will still do it. I've reached under and it doesn't feel like the dust shield is rubbing at all. I'm hoping it's something stupid like this but can't seem to see or feel anything weird. I've jacked it up to look but when the suspension is unloaded everything looks fine. Any ideas?

 

I'm no expert but I would have someone check, or you can if you know how, the caliper. It may be set incorrectly. Mine makes a metalic tik or kind of creek noise at a certain point on my left front wheel but it goes away after awhile.

 

Might be a bad axle.

Any free play in the ball joints?

 

I was thinking axle too. Ticking while turning is a symptom of one going out.

 

I just replaced the ball joints, My axle boot is worn but no tears or anything, I thought axle at first but since I didn't see anything torn on the boot I thought it was ok. Can the axle cv joint go back before the boot tears or anything?

 

yeh the axle can go bad without the boot tearing. if your car is lowered this can happen a lot faster. if its the axle it a consistent. click click click. if its a dust sheild hitting its more a woosh or a constant brake squeal. when the ball joints are replaced it is very easy to bend the dust shield and get a noise. best way just remove the dust shield

 

Yeah my car is barely above slammed. Are you talking about taking the dust shield off totally, and just running with it off? Also I was driving it a little today and noticed that it's also happening when the suspension bottoms out all the way, like when I go over a big bump or dip in the road. The main reason I thought it was the dust shield was because of how "tinny" the tick is, like what ever it is, is thin metal. I remember when my other axle went out the noise it was making was more solid sounding, if that makes any sense.

 

Looks it was the dust shield I took it off and noticed on the bottom buy where the lower ball joint nut sits was all chewed ans scraped up. Put it back together and no more noises, tick or other wise.

Is it cool to run it without the dust shield, there's just going to be more brake dust and crap down on that side when I pull the wheel off now right? I was thinking of just taking some tin snips to the shield and cut off the messed up part, its the bottom front of it, I would only be cutting off no more than 3" of metal, or should I not even bother and leave it how I got it now?