a "professional" opinion on my unknown clicking

[slashnick]

to recap. i have an unknown clicking sound on the exterrior of my 84 while driving. it is fairly faint, and cannot be heard with the windows up. when i have the windows down, and are driving along side anything that will reflect sound (ie cement barrier, other cars) i can hear a clicking that is proportional to my speed. as higher rates of speed (over about 50-60) it is not noticeable.

i have determined it is not my fuel injectors. some say it is my u-joints. as far as i can tell it is comming from the passenger, rear tire. hard to tell tho, my exhaust is pretty loud.

now that were up to date...

i went to a brake shop today to get my brakes checked out and make sure that wasnt the problem. they said my brakes look very new. with the car on a lift, they showed me how my rear tire does have some play, a very slight wiggle left and right. however, the driver side seems to have the same amount of play. they suggest new bearings and estimated about $250.

now everyone working there is hispanic and i dont speak spanish. everytime they spoke to each other, it was in spanish, which maked me paranoid. maybe im just a paranoid person.

anyone agree with that diagnosis? could loose bearings be to blame for the clicking, or am i about to get shafted? it seems to me the slight movement of the tire is not enough to cause this, and since it is on both sides and i only hear the clicking on the one side, this may be false info. thanks for reading. any help is appreciated.

-matt

 

[jmccloud]

clicking

I've had a lot of rear-ends apart, but not a Corvette. In most suspensions made since 1957-1958 or so, tapered roller bearings are used. These tapered bearings REQUIRE some play. End and side play would be called out in specifications and I don't know what they are for your model. It's probably in the 0.001"+ range which can be felt very easily when the bearing has no weight on it. This is not runout, it's the amount of movement due to manual forcing (axially and radially) with no weight on the bearing, of the bearing. This sounds like what was being demonstrated and is normal.
In my ignorance, I tightened my first tapered roller bearing equipped car (1963 SS, loaded) as though it had the old ball bearings (hand tight + at least one notch on the castelated nut). The roller bearings lasted about 100 miles and the wheel almost fell off.
The 'slop' is normal and essential.
Don't spring for big bucks unless the sound is increasing with wear.
Good Luck

 

[vader86]

If you have some play in the rear, its the bearings. Mine made a creaking noise before it went, and the passenger side usually goes first.

If its clicking or shifting hard when you put it in gear, thats the U-joints.

Id have the U-joints replaced at the same time as the Wheel bearings.

 

[slashnick]

vader,
as far as shifting hard goes. its an auto, most of the time when i put it from park to drive it will jump hard into gear. is that what you are describing?

my next stop was a transmission shop to look at the jumping into gear problem. but if its the u-joints, looks like i may have some problems solved.

 

[vader86]

vader,
as far as shifting hard goes. its an auto, most of the time when i put it from park to drive it will jump hard into gear. is that what you are describing?

my next stop was a transmission shop to look at the jumping into gear problem. but if its the u-joints, looks like i may have some problems solved.

Yes exactly. Thats what happened to me, turns out the Joint on the pass halfshaft and the driveshaft were bad.

 

[CKA_Racing]

There should not be any play in the bearings that you can feel or see. If you jack the tire off the ground, then grab with both hands. Put pressure left and then right. If it moves you might as well replace it because the bearings already on it's way out. So they did not really lie to you at all. Now, your ticking sound may be coming from something in the tire like a screw, peeble or nail adn not the bearings. I ahve owned a 1991 and a 1996 and both had allot of play in teh rear bearings. None of them made this sound you are describing. Have you looked over the tires completely to make sure there is no object stuck in the threads? The sound may also be coming from your u-joints.

 

[slashnick]

CKA_Racing,
yes i checked the tires, good call tho. i just thought about that myself this past weekend

Vader86,
from what you are saying, it seems as tho my u-joint(s) need to be replaced.

couple questions about this job:
1. is u-joint work something i can easily do myself?
2. how do i know which ones may need replacing, or should i do all at one time?
3. six total joints right?

gmpartsdirect.com has them for $29.71 a piece.

btw, the movement of the wheel is very minute. i took the tires off the other day and didnt even notice it. once i get the u-joints checked, that will be my next project.

thanks guys

-matt

 

[vader86]

If i'm not mistaken, removing the U-joints and installing them requires the use of a press. Otherwise its doable by yourself.

its best to do them all at once, since when one goes theyre all on their last leg

 

[slashnick]

cool

thanks for the info

i'll try and get it done this weekend somewhere.

i hope this solves my problem.

 

[jim's82]

Hey Matt,
My '82 was making a ticking noise from the rear end. I had the brakes checked.... they were fine, had the wheel bearings checked by a shop similar to Midas. They said the bearings were gone & they would charge around $300.00 total for the job. Once I did some investigating I found that $300.00 was actually very cheap. So I asked them exactly how they would do the job & they couldn't give me an answer, they basicly said that they "use the manual & start taking things apart". They were quickly out of the picture. I talked with a local Corvette shop, he charged me $65.00 per side for bearings & bushings. I had to carry in the trailing arms though. The biggest part of the job was removing & replacing the arms. After all was disassebled it was discovered that the ticking was actually coming from 2 differant places. My rear end bushings (all of them) were so worn out & flattened, the U-joints from the pilot shafts to the differential were actually contacting the bottom of the battery box. This couldn't be seen until the rear end was out. The other tick was coming from the parking brakes. On the '82 they're 2 tiny shoes inside the disc & can't be seen without taking the disc off. I had a shoe with a broken spring. After picking up the trailing arms, with new bearings & bushings (by the way, mine had a small amt of visible play) the guy told me the old bearings had a lot of miles left in them. To shorten this story, I told the brake shop our findings & they admitted that they had no idea there were parking brakes on the other side of the disc & were unaware of the involvement to replace the bearings. After re-assembly you'll need an all wheel alignment.... not cheap either. If, the '84 has the same style parking brake, I'd have them checked & get a 2nd opinion on those bearings before spending the $$$$.

 

[geekinavette]

I have to agree with CKA_Racing

Although most tapered bearings do have some play in them, there should be NO play in your rear wheel bearings, the torque spec on the bearing nut is some crazy high number (don't remember exactly, but I could look it up in the shop manual). If it's loose then the bearing is in fact probably already worn, at least a little I would think. I also doubt that the ticking is coming from the bearing, but if it were me I'd go ahead and just tighten up the bearing nut, and then see if that makes a difference.

Best of luck,

Bill

 

[leericardo]

"clicking" rear end

I was "clicking" my way from Tahoe in my 86 Convertible last summer, and finally made it to Midas in Carson City where they put on new front pads and turned the rotors, for $420, yeh! Anyway, the clicking returned and I had a huge "clacking" by the time I made it back to Nebraska...where "my guy" replaced the shot u-joints ($100 per drive axle). That did the trick! Good luck!

 

[ratdog]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, the joys of owning a VETTE!!!!!

 

[BigRed]

Dumb question but have you pulled out the little rocks out of your tires? They will click on the road as your driving and drive you nuts.

 

[chevyaddict]

ha ha ha ha! As I was reading through this thread I was going to mention those darn rocks! I chased after a clicking noise awhile back just to find the darn rock one day. That fixed the problem!!