Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Rubbing noise in Front End

This problem has been getting slightly worse over the last several weeks.

It first started off with a "rubbing sound" on the right side of the front end when making fast Right turns, and the car was leaning such as in a cloverleaf. Now it has progressed to making a similar noise when hitting a dip in the road but still going straight. The Right turn noise is definitely worse than the noise when hitting a little dip in the road.

One member suggested checking the bearings by jacking up the vehicle and looking for play, I did that and there was no play.

Does anyone have any other brilliant ideas, I've looked under the vehicle and see no evidence of any impairment or rubbing. Is a bearing still a likely scenario?

Its a 95 SE with 82 on the clock

K

hows your brakes look?


you could have a bad caliper causing the pad to rub.


does teh sound go away if you hit the brakes?

check your lug nuts? make sure no splashgaurds are rubbing either

I ran it by a shop that I've done some buisiness with. They ran it up on the hoist. They couldnt find anything loose or wrong.

The more I drive it, the more it sounds like a rusty spring or a noisy bushing type noise.

But its still driving mr nutz, but am glad I got the shops blessing that what ever it is, its not a safety issue.....yet

K

Check for contact between the stabilizer bar and the A-arms I think is where it can rub. The bushing holding the stabilizer can disappear allowing the bar to move left and right. But even if you can't pull it back and forth by hand, it could be out of position and grating against other suspension parts. Look for a shiny metal surface on the otherwise black painted bar.

Failing that it could be the struts getting noisy as they load and unload. I replaced mine at about 50k for that reason, sounds similar to what you are hearing. Bit like a creaky mattress.

I recently had a couple noises in my front end that I figured out. First, I had a clicking sound near my right front wheel. Turned out to be that the ABS wheel sensor had come loose and was bouncing around, sounding like a baseball card in a bicycle's spokes. Only had to tighten up the bolt holding it in, and that went away.

The other noise appeared a few days ago near the left front wheel, and sounded like a tire rubbing. It would get worse if I applied the brakes or took a corner. Turned out that the strut was rubbing against the top of the tire. There's like a support plate right above the tire, attached to the strut with 2 rounded bolts. The struts are old and I had just installed new stock springs, so I'm wondering if the newer springs bent the support plate down a little bit. One of the bolts was almost completely flattened and polished from the tire rubbing it.

Took the wheel off and took a hammer to the support plate to see if I could get it back where it needed to be. Noise went away, and it has enough clearance where it's not rubbing anymore, but new struts are on the way so it doesn't happen again.

Bob