I need some diagnostic advice on this one. Background to start with, sorry it is a bit long. I'm trying to anticipate what you might need to know.
I got this 2005 Outback 2.5i with 85,000 miles last month. I drove it down from Buffalo, NY to my home in North Carolina. So I feel pretty familiar with how it was driving and sounding. the issue I have now certainly was not at all present before I worked on the car. The car had next to no maintenance for the last 7 years, and lived it's entire life in Buffalo. So I thought it was good to really refurbish anything that looked worn. I have a lift and have been repairing/restoring cars for 40 years. So on the front suspension I replaced that struts with preassembled units from FCS. I did the stab bar end links and ball joints. I also did the brake pad and rotors. In the course of torquing the right side lower ball joint cinch bolt the mounting ear at that bolt cracked. So I ordered and installed a new housing, re-using the existing front bearing and outer tierod end; since they did not seem to have any issues.
After putting the car all back together and doing a rough alignment setting, I now have a clunk under acceleration. It seems to be from the right front wheel area, but I will be confirming that with the help of a friend this evening. Only under moderate and heavy acceleration there is a clunk that is in sync with wheel speed. It is independent of the gear (car has AT) Sounds mostly like a knocking (almost like the sound of the exhaust bumping up into the floor). When coasting or braking it is perfectly quiet. If I ride the brake while accelerating, it mostly goes away. Turning or side loading doesn't seem to make much difference, the real key is acceleration loading.
I read a bunch of posts on acceleration related noise here to see what others had experienced. Then last night I put it back up on the lift and disassembled the front brake and removed the rotor to see if I could find any play or other evidence of something that could be hitting, I didn't find anything. While I was under there, I inspected the drive shaft center bearing and ujoints. Also, looked at the LCA bushings too. I couldn't find anything suspicious. My thought is to confirm (tonight) that the noise is clearly coming from the right front wheel area. If so, I was kind of heading towards replacing the right side drive shaft and bearing. I did have to put some hammering effort into getting the bearing assembly out of the old housing so perhaps even though it looked fine, I damaged it in some way. That is my current best guess. But I hate just throwing parts at stuff, when I can't demonstrate anything that is wrong with the existing parts. And nothing I have tried on the lift will reproduce the sound, I have to be driving at 15 mph or more.
Any suggestions are most welcome. Thanks in advance
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This is my 3rd Outback; but I have not been this deep into the front suspension the others. And as I have been doing car stuff for a long time I know that sometimes things that you wouldn't think are related, can be. So here, FWIW, is a list of all the other stuff I did to this car. In case something here triggers a possibility.
timing belt, tensioners, water pump
both acc belts
all 3 hoses
new plugs
replaced all the missing rusted bolts on the heat shields
new rear shocks (not preassembled in the rear, I reused the springs and tops)
new rear pads and rotors.
I got this 2005 Outback 2.5i with 85,000 miles last month. I drove it down from Buffalo, NY to my home in North Carolina. So I feel pretty familiar with how it was driving and sounding. the issue I have now certainly was not at all present before I worked on the car. The car had next to no maintenance for the last 7 years, and lived it's entire life in Buffalo. So I thought it was good to really refurbish anything that looked worn. I have a lift and have been repairing/restoring cars for 40 years. So on the front suspension I replaced that struts with preassembled units from FCS. I did the stab bar end links and ball joints. I also did the brake pad and rotors. In the course of torquing the right side lower ball joint cinch bolt the mounting ear at that bolt cracked. So I ordered and installed a new housing, re-using the existing front bearing and outer tierod end; since they did not seem to have any issues.
After putting the car all back together and doing a rough alignment setting, I now have a clunk under acceleration. It seems to be from the right front wheel area, but I will be confirming that with the help of a friend this evening. Only under moderate and heavy acceleration there is a clunk that is in sync with wheel speed. It is independent of the gear (car has AT) Sounds mostly like a knocking (almost like the sound of the exhaust bumping up into the floor). When coasting or braking it is perfectly quiet. If I ride the brake while accelerating, it mostly goes away. Turning or side loading doesn't seem to make much difference, the real key is acceleration loading.
I read a bunch of posts on acceleration related noise here to see what others had experienced. Then last night I put it back up on the lift and disassembled the front brake and removed the rotor to see if I could find any play or other evidence of something that could be hitting, I didn't find anything. While I was under there, I inspected the drive shaft center bearing and ujoints. Also, looked at the LCA bushings too. I couldn't find anything suspicious. My thought is to confirm (tonight) that the noise is clearly coming from the right front wheel area. If so, I was kind of heading towards replacing the right side drive shaft and bearing. I did have to put some hammering effort into getting the bearing assembly out of the old housing so perhaps even though it looked fine, I damaged it in some way. That is my current best guess. But I hate just throwing parts at stuff, when I can't demonstrate anything that is wrong with the existing parts. And nothing I have tried on the lift will reproduce the sound, I have to be driving at 15 mph or more.
Any suggestions are most welcome. Thanks in advance
======
This is my 3rd Outback; but I have not been this deep into the front suspension the others. And as I have been doing car stuff for a long time I know that sometimes things that you wouldn't think are related, can be. So here, FWIW, is a list of all the other stuff I did to this car. In case something here triggers a possibility.
timing belt, tensioners, water pump
both acc belts
all 3 hoses
new plugs
replaced all the missing rusted bolts on the heat shields
new rear shocks (not preassembled in the rear, I reused the springs and tops)
new rear pads and rotors.
