The mystery sound continues ...

Today I took the car to Race Torque Engineering in Wangarra to get to the bottom of where that noise was coming from.

The guys lifted my car and checked for wheel bearing noises (there were none), excessive hub wear (none), checked for excessive lower arm bush wear (all were fine), inspected suspension upper mounts, dampers and rings for any looseness (all were fine). They also suspected that the noise could be coming from the pads or even a loose caliper itself but all nuts and bolts were tight as expected and they even removed the pads to eliminate pad travel from the equation.

So what's causing this ??

All fingers pointed to the left, outer CV joint but here is the caveat...it happens in a straight line only and not when turning...which is very unlike a CV joint !

After about an hour or so of trying to find the culprit we concluded that it is the CV joint.

Honda Australia charges over $600 for a single CV joint, ridicilous ! So this afternoon I called one of the Honda dealers in Japan and asked about the prices. Get ready for this ! A whole left driveshaft is $500, a single CV joint which comes with a clamp ring is only $200, the boot with a clamp ring just $40 ! Guess where I am getting my parts from ?

- Rod

Something had to give

Since about 4 months ago I've been hearing very faint "clicking" sounds coming from the front whenever I accelerated from a standstill or whenever the car was reversed and then moved forward. When I was in Japan I mentioned this to my mechanics from SEEKER who checked for unusual play in the hubs/joints as well as checked for a possibility of a cracked suspension spring. Needles to say it was neither at the time and I didn't bother with the issue again. However since recently this sound has become increasingly louder and now it seems like something is seriously wrong with the car.

After some research and talking to a few people I believe it's caused by one of 2 things:

Firstly, it could be a bad CV joint which is the most likely reason (in my mind). Can't tell if it's the inner or outer and can't truly say if it's on the left or the right side of the car. I can reproduce this sound when I drive slowly in 1st gear and "jerk" the car forward and back or when I reverse into a driveway which is on a hill. Driving the car in a circle in reverse doesn't exhibit the issue though.

Another possible reason for this could be a damaged wheel bearing and/or wheel hub. I briefly spoke with a local mechanic here in Perth who thinks this is the most likely cause but wants to disassemble the hubs to confirm his diagnosis (which he wants $100/hr for).

So it looks like this is going to put a stop to my circuit time attacks until the issue is resolved. I don't know whether I'll need to get new driveshafts, perhaps recondition the old ones, buy a new wheel bearing and/or wheel hub but the fact of the matter is I can't drive the car beyond light every day driving and depending on what the problem is I may need to wait a while for parts to arrive before the problem can be fixed.

More to come ....

-Rod