Itinerant Air-Cooled

back at it again! Coming into Steamboat Springs en route to a campground further east, after driving several hours, came to a stop, started through first and then in 2nd a clunking, rhythmic and increasing with speed, van going straight on level ground. Continues in 3rd then by 45 plus mph it kind of disappeared. Happened through town and as we started climbing. Pulled off, sounded like it was passenger rear side so guessing CV or wheel bearing. Jacked her up, some bearing play but not bad enough for what we heard and spun tire foreword and back. Forewars fine, backward rhythmic click and transaxle near tranny would kind of move with the click. Checked other side for good measure- same situation. Did some turns in reverse and foreward driving and heard no noise. Drove back into town, no noise. Down a side street, no noise. Waaaaay out of our way to a state park No noise. I'm baffled. We had not heard this all day. Did drive a longer section of grooved road prior but I don't know. Thoughts? Plan to keep pushing on tomorrow and see what happens if the noise is gone. Follow our adventure at @arewehomeyet

got the same on the 85 wbx. check to make sure you have the lock washers and torque distribution washers (https://www.carcustomonline.com/87-5081 ... 5081-0.htm) installed. check the torque on the cv joint screws. if youre missing the washers it may be that the cv screws are getting loose and cv makes noise as it rotates or the cv screws stick out too far and rub against the hub/sway arm as they turn. does it happen only when you turn? you might wanna inject more grease into the boots. it may also be the bearing starting to go bad. when is the last time you serviced the CVs? are these OEM german or cheap chinese axles?

if the axle is moving in and out each click that sounds like a CV joint binding. When the car is jacked up the axle geometry is changed and sometimes that forces grease into the joint so it is quiet for awhile. Anyway that is just my opinion what is going on if the CV joints have many miles on them meaning 40,000 or more. I'd be carrying a couple spare joints, proper grease, and boots as well as the proper tools to swap them and spread the snap rings that hold them on. If you make a long maintenance stop it might be time to check them and the grease. Don't be surprised if one or more ball bearings fall out in pieces or are bad. All that straight line driving lets the ball bearing wear one spot in the axle and it slowly goes dry. Colin I think has a procedure where every so often he slips under the bus and moves the axles in and out to move the grease around.

The noise never came back. Crap. It was not happening on turns, but yes on straightaways. Odd that is went away. A few times today when turning the wheel harder left after straights or rights it would make a kind of clunk one time then not again. Happened 2 maybe 3 times. The only thing we have done CV related was to add a little grease when we replaced the wheel bearings, though they aren't as tight as I'd like them to be. Transaxle were replaced about 8000 miles ago, and transmission replaced about 7000 miles ago. Otherwise no record of CV getting attention.

you can slide under the car this evening when it cools off and move each axle in and out. See if it moves smoothly, and it helps a little tomorrow. My guess is one of the ball bearings in one of the CVs is starting to die and it is wearing a groove into the hub or ring of the CV. This is just a guess. I used to get about 60,000 out of each one when I was doing a lot of straight line driving. That is even with cleaning and regreasing every 30,000 miles. Messy job. I used to keep the undamaged ball bearings and replace the damaged ones to get a little more mileage out of one.

This photo is off line from google / rorty.net but it shows what I am speaking of.

Definitely set aside some time for a repack, a clean clean repack, like this one at a mall cul de sac in Winchester VA last spring:

We finally got around to inspecting our CV joints as recommended and found 3 out of 4 to have pretty significant pitting. All were EMPI brand. We ordered the nice ones and replaced all 4 to make sure they are all in good working order. All are back on and our first trip with them had no vibrations or knocking. Seems we found the source of the problem. Onward.

awesome