Jingly knocking noise...update but more questions!

[Iain C]

Right, my truck has always had a slight jingly knocking noise coming from underneath that you coudl sometimes hear.  Very difficult to describe, but here's my best attempt!  Imagine putting a steel ring, about the size of a roll of sellotape, on what sounds like the front propshaft, and every so often when you hear this ring jingling around, someone gives it a light tap with a hammer as the propshaft is turning.  Sorry, best I can come up with. 8-[

On a trip to Scotland last week it's got a LOT worse.  You can hear it most of the time, especially on a trailing throttle, there's a bit more of a bang if you touch the brakes lightly, and if you drive over rough ground (not off roading as such, just an unmade road/farm track or similar) the jingle is very loud.  But everything drives fine, no big bangs that you can feel as such, it's much more of an audible thing.

Any ideas?

Don't think it's a CV as it'd no worse on full lock.  Caliper loose?  Pads?  Front prop UJs?  Worn propshaft splines?  Or something worse, in the diff or gearbox?  Any checks I can do to isolate it?  I had a rummage underneath in a carpark the other day (no tools) and could not see anything obvious in terms of axles or wheels about to fall off, however if it's driveline I could not test as it was on a slight slope with the handbrake on. :-k

Any thoughts gratefully accepted!  MOT was only about 1500 miles ago and nothing came up and it's only done road miles since.

[wizard]

Hi Dunno if this will help but my brother had a unidentifyable rattle on his Disco. We couldnt determine where it was coming form either.
Anyway while checking the hand brake pads we saw that the backing plate had came loose and was rattling about.
Two new bolts and some washers and it was sorted.

wizard

[Skibum346]

I know exactly what it is... (brave statement)... I had the same problem....

Take off your rear prop shaft and you'll get the fright of your life when the handbrake drum wobbles about like it's about to fall off. Take off the drum and you'll find the big nylock nut holding the Tx box drive flange in is loose. The jangling is the handbrake drum bouncing off of the various bits in reach... the banging on take up is becouase thge drive flange is loose.

DON'T just tighten in it up... Get a NEW nylock... and consider threadlock before tightening to the correct torque.

Good luck

Skibum

[bogie]

That nut sounds a good un but my front prop jingles like santa claus until i grease the ujs and slip,give it a couple of hundred miles and its jinglin again.Best bit bout it, there is no play or wear in the prop at all. Just learnt to humn along with it!

[Iain C]

OK cheers all, that's given me some pointers...time for a crawl under it tomorrow!

I'll check the handbrake drum but I'm pretty sure it's going to be coming somewhere from the front...and I reckon it's going to be propshaft.  We'll see.

If it is, and it's terminal, it's OK to remove it as a temporary measure and drive in diff lock isn't it?

Thanks!

[Iain C]

Right, after having changed the n/s CV joint a few weeks ago, it would appear that the whole n/s swivel housing is scarily loose.  Hence no noise when under constant load like a motorway, the "knock" as the whole thing rocks when I brake gently, and general rattling around on rough roads.  With the n/s jacked up and the load off it, you can wiggle the wheel round and it feels like it's a totally shot wheel bearing, apart from it's the swivel.

I'm not quite sure how it's happened though...when I did the CV I was originally going to take the swivel housing off and fit a new wiper seal, however in the absence of a ball joint splitter and with some pitted chrome swivels which would probably have eaten new seals, I decided against it, and I did the two top swivel bolts back up again.  Any thoughts as to what might have happened?

Can I rectify this by undoing the bolts and removing some shims?  I know in a perfect world it's a full strip, new bearings, spring balances and the like, however I urgently need the vehicle on the road so if I remove/replace shims until I can't feel any play, will that do until I have the opportunity to do a proper rebuild?

Thanks

[Banjo]

With that amount of play it sounds as if the bearings are shot, not a big job but a bit messy.

[Iain C]

That's either...

A-SOOOOOOOOO annoying as I had it apart almost to that point when I did the CV and it's since failed, or

B-rather worrying as I clearly have not put it together again properly, but with nothing left over, it driving basically OK and everything done up properly I'm struggling to work out what I could possibly have done wrong?  I'm guessing me "disturbing" them must have knackered the bearings in some way.  Although thinking back, when I jacked it up to do the CV, a rather worrying amount of rusty water came out the bottom of the wiper seal, so what with that possibly corroding the bearings, and all the old gunk being cleared out of the inside of the swivel, and an 800 mile round trip to Scotland, perhaps it was game over anyway?

Got usual tools, torque wrench, ball joint splitter, bearings, swivel rebuild kit, spring balance on the way, is there anything else I need?  Does the CV need splitting and a new circlip again?

[Banjo]

Cv will pull out with the shaft, make sure you use good quality bearings, timken etc, I think the bottom swivel pin uses torx bolts can't remember the size though.

[Iain C]

Right then, front up in the air and me wiggling everything round I hear that same noise, just occasionally.  Eventually I found it...brake pads!

Basically there's loads of play round the pads and pins, and with 4 of them flapping about it's quite a lot of noise.  Stretching the springs by a few mm seemed to work a bit, so wheels back on and test drive time.  Unmade greenlane near me gave me slightly reduced jingling when coasting/trailing throttle, no noise if I was gently covering the brakes whilst on the throttle, and the jingling came back if I was driving against a click or two on the handbrake.  So it must be the pads...they are very new, but must have at least 5mm of float (in terms or rotational float, the axis that they move in whilst being dragged round by the disc in forward or reverse) and also and also in the plane that you move them whilst installing them (as in pushing them into the slot of the caliper)  Pins are not a great fit either, they move about too.  But is there any way to sort this?

Secondly, I know I do need to do the swivel bearings, but I really need the vehicle this week.  The "bad" side did show as an advisory on the MOT approx 1500 road miles (no off road) ago so is unlikely to have collapsed completely without some very obvious handling/wobble issues and it drives just fine.  There's a few mm of movement apparent with the road wheel on, nothing as soon as it's off and you are trying to move just the hub/disc.

As a short term measure, can I simply remove the top swivel bolts, remove some shims to get rid of that play, and reassemble in situ without having to remove the whole lot from the truck?  Parts and a spring balance for setting preload are on thier way, but I'm going to struggle this week.

Any thoughts?

[Iain C]

D'OH!!!!!

I only checked one side with the wheel off (what seemed like the noisy side).

Anti rattle springs have obviously corroded and fallen out...not there any more!

Question still stands on the swivel though!

[Range Rover Blues]

If you have the non-ABS axles then you can simply take a thin shim out of the top bearing untill it feels about right (disconnect the steering)

If you have ABS axles you need to rebuild the steering.