I just got my car up and running, but noticed that everytime I drive it...it makes a grinding/scraping of metal noise. Thought it was my wheel bearings, but after having a look underneath the car, I found out its my LCA.

What I did to the car before noise:

I had my driver and passenger side lower ball joints replaced, since the boots were torn...got them at Autozone. I took the hubs off and had a shop press them out and in. And also did an alignment and my rotors resurfaced. I didn't replace the brake pads, cause they were still good.

After installing everything and driving it, I hear this noise. So I want to know if anybody has encounter this problem and what they did to solve it. Thanks.

Here's some pics and how my car sits.

 

up for some answers.

 

no one?

 

did the dust shield get pushed back into the lca?

 

no, the front lca is pushing into the dustshield. Without the dustshield, the lca would be pushing into the brake disc.

 

Bend the dust shield out of the way. It's not a big thing just move it with your hand. Have bent, banged, dented, hit it a number of times. Don't worry just move it.

Wait a minute, you say with out the dust shield the LCA will hit the brake disc?

How did this all of a sudden happen?


Way is your car so low, may be to low.

 

That ball joint looks like it may be a bit too long is it after market or OEM? Or your camber angle is just a little bit off Did you drop it and if you did how far and did you use a camber kit?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1992Si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Bend the dust shield out of the way. It's not a big thing just move it with your hand. Have bent, banged, dented, hit it a number of times. Don't worry just move it.

Way is your car so low, may be to low.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

The pictures you see of my hatch is how low it sits now. Not as low as some that I see on here. And when it sits like that, the lca presses onto the dust shield...which inturn presses onto the brake disc. I've also tried moving the dust shield with my fingers when the car is sitting on the ground...wouldn't move.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GhostAccord &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That ball joint looks like it may be a bit too long is it after market or OEM? Or your camber angle is just a little bit off Did you drop it and if you did how far and did you use a camber kit? </TD></TR></TABLE>

I was thinking that too...the ball joints are after market, since I got them from autozone. And I do have a camber kit...the progress kit...been running with that kit for 2 years now...no problems then. I am thinking about taking it off and putting back the stock parts on just to see what would happen.

I also forgot to mention that I replaced my tie rod ends...the driver side. And after putting that on, I had the alignment done to it. Could that be causing the issues? Wouldn't the alignment shop have noticed it? Should I try to screw it in more and then re-do a alignment?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1992Si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Bend the dust shield out of the way. It's not a big thing just move it with your hand. Have bent, banged, dented, hit it a number of times. Don't worry just move it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

If the alignment is correct. Use some tin snips and cut the dust shield enough to clear.


Good choice going with Progress. They do make nice stuff.

 

I'll take another picture of the scrape mark on my lca.

 

raised my car a bit...still scraping. Tomorrow, I'm going to take off my camber kit and see if that's the problem. If not, plan C would be to replace the lower ball joints with oem ones.

Does anyone have pictures of how the lbj are supposed to sit? Are they supposed to be stiff or have play in them?

 

The ball joint should be able to swivel but it should be somewhat stiff and there shouldn't be any play in them.

 

i have the exact same problem after i did my axles.... i juz bended the splash plate...

 

its not the dust plate. I've been searching all day today and I think it might be because my lca's are bent. I'll take some pics of my lca without the car being jacked up when I get home.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by methos713 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">its not the dust plate. I've been searching all day today and I think it might be because my lca's are bent. I'll take some pics of my lca without the car being jacked up when I get home.</TD></TR></TABLE>

my friend had the same problem and it ended up being his brakes needed changed and the little plate that goes over the brake pads got moved and was rubbing against the rotor check your brakes.

 

The car is too low, you're probably close to having the upper control arms hit the inside of the shock tower as well.

Do you have the 9" brakes or the 10" brakes?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jdm inc &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

my friend had the same problem and it ended up being his brakes needed changed and the little plate that goes over the brake pads got moved and was rubbing against the rotor check your brakes.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The only thing I did to my brakes was resurfaced the disc. With the car sitting down, the lca pushes the dust plate right onto the disc...and it'll just come back to the same place even if it was bend or pushed back.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by locash &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The car is too low, you're probably close to having the upper control arms hit the inside of the shock tower as well.

Do you have the 9" brakes or the 10" brakes?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, it looks like my uca is close to hitting the shock tower. I do have a camber kit and ground control top hats. As for my brakes...I have 92-95 oem civic si/ex brakes.

I also ordered a pair of oem front lca. I hope'n it to be the lca, since the ones I just ordered were 100 bucks a piece from yoparts.com. I'll update as soon as I get those in. I'll also do side to side comparison to see if my old lcas are bent. Any more suggestion would also be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Maybe the ball joint is too high. Compare the gap between the knuckle and LCA against a stock EG. It does appears that the gap is larger than normal. Check the wheel bearings while your at it... shake the wheel with the wheel off the ground and see if you have any play.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by stumpyf4 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Maybe the ball joint is too high. Compare the gap between the knuckle and LCA against a stock EG. It does appears that the gap is larger than normal. Check the wheel bearings while your at it... shake the wheel with the wheel off the ground and see if you have any play.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I checked my wheel bearings already. They looked good. As for the ball joint being too high...I thought of that too. Oh well, my front LCA came in today, so I'll be busy putting them on this weekend.

Any suggestions on what I should look out for when I'm doing "DIY" on the lcas? And I know that I'm supposed to go get an alignment afterwards.

 

okay, I finally got to replacing my front lca....though I did say I was going to like 2 1/2 months ago. I know its been awhile, but I've just been busy with work and family stuff. Anyhow, after replacing the driver side FLCA, it still does the same thing.

So I guess nothing was wrong with the original flca. I don't know what to do now...could it be the lower ball joint....could it be because of my camber kit....or how the toe was adjusted during alignment...but then again it was making noises when I took it to have it adjusted.

Already spent $$$ on those brand new lca...which wasn't the problem...and now I'm don't know what else to do.

Help me out guys...I'm stump.

 

It does look like the lower ball joint is a little tall. I know you said its been like two months but I would cross reference some part numbers and make sure they gave you the right ones. Them boys at the zone have been known to pull the wrong part. Happened to me last weekend when I went to change my axle seal had the axle pulled out to find that the seal was to big.

 

stupid question but, just its hard to diag over the web...Did you possibly mix up the L and R lower control arms so that they are on the wrong sides, Did you mixup the upper Bjs?...another question? Could the shop of bent the spindles? I have never had to really use a BJ press to remove Honda BJs, I just usually knock em out with a hammer

 

there's no way you can mix them...from what I remember, I think the knuckles only bolted one way and they have the R and L on them. As for the ball joints...I had a shop do it after I ordered the bj. I don't know if anything was bent when they installed it, but I'm pretty sure they used a press. And I never took off the upper bj.

 

Any resolution?

I recently replaced my rotors with oem blanks and my lower ball joint on the passenger side is being pushed into the brake rotor. Trying to figure out if I have an incorrect rotor or if something is bent on the suspension.