288 Calipers - pad slap/clonk ?

[Bauhaus 3]

With regards to the clonk noise have you checked your front roll bar ?   I had a past issue with a broken drop link which caused the same knocking / clonking symptoms as your having.

[_Matt_ 26]

Thanks Bauhaus, yes it looks ok but is a couple of years old now. I had to remove the drop link lower bolt to change the ball joint. When I had a drop link fail on my daily they rattled all the time on bumpy roads. The Corrado is pretty intermittent.

That said I'd may as well throw a new one on as have a spare set here.  

[_Matt_ 26]

Still haven't solved this. So far i have stripping the brakes and used the ceramic grease on the pad ears and I did also find the slide pins were dry as bone so applied some TRW slide pin grease. I've also swapped out the ball joints. All bushes are still new looking and all bolts are torqued up to spec. I have solid R32 rear wishbone bushes in place.

Engine mounts seem good on rocking - the car as a VT up front and lemforder rears installed in 2019.

I've also swapped over to H&R springs (much more comfy than eibach btw on Bilstein B8 dampers) so have had the entire shock assembly out and back in. Installed new spring plates with the springs and top mounts as part of the swap over.

No 6/12 or 3/9 play in the wheel. Bearings spin nicely are were installed back in April.

The noise is intermittent. I rocked the car back and forth whilst moving the steering wheel slightly and heard the noise once. It is a singular clonk that reverberates through the spring. Car drives normally otherwise.

My next port of call is going to be the ARB drop link - they look fine but are 3 years /4,000 miles old now but dunno how to test them. Driveshafts are another thought as they will have seen some impact when the bearings were done but I am not getting your typical failed driveshaft noises.

 

 

[Dox 22]

There’s a discussion on another forum re brake clunks new pads purchased from a EUROpean supplier using the name of a quality brand under license, with their clients being somewhat slap dash and not cleaning carriers before fitting the manufacture the pads “loose fit”

the owner purchased elsewhere and all is now good and a refund issued

[_Matt_ 26]

Interesting cheers Dox. I do have some spare lightly used Pagid pads I could swap. I am not sure what is in there and didn't recognise the brand when the garage got them in. 

I took the car out for a spin yesterday and no noises. Maybe the cermaic grease is doing something and it is/was the pads. Perhaps a case of use and monitor as it's driving OK. I just don't want to pay out to get a proper camber alignment (track is fine) if I have to remove the shock assembly again - anyone know if it is possible to remove the drive axle without moving the shock? I don't think it is possble? Perhaps by loosening the ball joint maybe?

Rear ABS sensor played up yesterday again after reset so also have that to go and look at. Discs and rings are a few years old so hopefully just needs a clean rather than disassembly.... 

   

[_Matt_ 26]

Last update hopefully... solved... changed the driveshafts and it hasn't made the noise since.

Original inner boots/joints and one sides outer looks original so they had done their time.

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[_Matt_ 26]

FFS still does it. Transition from forward to reverse and steering lock to reverse up my mums drive - clonk.

 

Thinking perhaps its the front wishbone bush as everything else is new. The wishbone had a r32 rear bush pressed in but otherwise looks to be original.

 

 Zero movement with pry bar. What is a good test to isolate front wishbone bush? Driving car a slow speed and rocking side to side doesn't replicate noise.

 

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[tonedef 8]

5 hours ago, MJA said:

FFS still does it. Transition from forward to reverse and steering lock to reverse up my mums drive - clonk.

 

Thinking perhaps its the front wishbone bush as everything else is new. The wishbone had a r32 rear bush pressed in but otherwise looks to be original.

 

 Zero movement with pry bar. What is a good test to isolate front wishbone bush? Driving car a slow speed and rocking side to side doesn't replicate noise.

 

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Mine does exactly the same thing, strangely enough when turning around on my own drive, not really heard it anywhere else!

Spec sounds similar, 288 brakes, R32 rear bushes, Powerflex front bushes. I can’t imagine where there’s play as nothing under there has more than maybe 5K miles on it.

I convinced myself it was a wheel bearing, although they’re all new, but couldn’t find it when I tried them and tightened everything up. I was hoping you were going to solve it for me when you mentioned the same problem, at least I don’t have to buy drive shafts to try fix it!

I’ll let you know if I find anything.

[_Matt_ 26]

Haha at least my pain is shared!

I've posted up on club gti as well now and I'm thinking again to strip the brakes down and double check the pad ears are free to slide on the carrier. I cant quite remember as have done the mk3 and family cars brakes since but iirc the pad was tight on the carrier and perhaps not moving cleanly (or maybe it is too loose and slapping about). The family car (seat exeo) has a very similar set up with 312s and no noises but I did file the ears a little as they had lumps in (TRW pads).

I may have applied too much ceramic grease- coated the ears and applied to the back of outer pad. Probably should have done a little less now reading up on it.

It only happens in situations where brakes have been applied before hand.

I wiggled the car and say 20mph side to side to check for noises and get nothing. 12-6 and 3-9 are perfect. I got my eldest daughter to rock the steering this eve whilst I viewed the wishbone bushes and they are fine/no real movement.



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[_Matt_ 26]

Took it apart again. Im pretty sure it is the pads. Nothing else has any movement and everything is relatively new - oldest part is 4000 or so miles old max and many parts are newer.

 

The pads themselves are "blue line" el cheapo and their fit is pretty loose against the carrier slide tracks - id say a fag roller paper gap allowing up and down movement. On the other cars I have just done there was no movement and after a little bit of filing they moved resistant free on the.carrier.

 

I've bought some Pagids to swap them out with and will report back.

 

 

 

 

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[_Matt_ 26]

Just an update as know a coupe of others are following for a solution!

 

Carrier change didn't solve the issue. I believe now that it is the ARB hitting the wishbone on the passenger side. Car is going on the Shacker machine on Tuesday.

 

The camber is way out still as waiting to solve the issue before getting it aligned.

 

Only clonks once on a drive - today went on a 40 mile trip and it clonked once on the first reverse maneuver (never does it when I reverse out of drive first thing though) and then doesn't do it again - I.e when I was parking up next to Keyo no clonk but had thst been the first reverse of the journey it would have done it.

 

The front wishbone bushes are the only non-new and non touched item in this rebuild. Perhaps they are allowing some movement of the wishbone. Or perhaps it just needs an alignment. The wishbone is original VW but rear bush changed for a R32 bush.

 

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[Dox 22]

51 minutes ago, MJA said:

Just an update as know a coupe of others are following for a solution!

 

Carrier change didn't solve the issue. I believe now that it is the ARB hitting the wishbone on the passenger side. Car is going on the Shacker machine on Tuesday.

 

The camber is way out still as waiting to solve the issue before getting it aligned.

 

Only clonks once on a drive - today went on a 40 mile trip and it clonked once on the first reverse maneuver (never does it when I reverse out of drive first thing though) and then doesn't do it again - I.e when I was parking up next to Keyo no clonk but had thst been the first reverse of the journey it would have done it.

 

The front wishbone bushes are the only non-new and non touched item in this rebuild. Perhaps they are allowing some movement of the wishbone. Or perhaps it just needs an alignment. The wishbone is original VW but rear bush changed for a R32 bush.

 

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ARB upside down?

 

 

[_Matt_ 26]

Cheers Dox, I have checked i think it is correct - bent downward under the exhaust rather than upwards.

It possibly needs a knock a few mm towards passenger side to clear it but will wait the results of the shacker plate machine at the garage incase another bush is tired causing excessive movement.


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[_Matt_ 26]

Been to the local garage, great guys but they don't know older VWs inside out. They do take great care of the car though. Car went on shacker machine and no problems down below with bushes, arb, bearings but there is a problem with the top mount on the side the noise comes from. When they jacked the car up after the shacker machine the passenger side shock dropped a small amount and the noise was heard from the top of the shock. On testing there is lateral and vertical movement (about half a cm up and down but I think this is normal on VWs?). This is the 2nd new top mount (lemforder) installed this side. 

Either Stealth and myself have installed these incorrectly or there is something else amiss. A few questions if anyone can help. I may have to go back to Stealth (100mile trip) for diagnoises but am supposed to be showing the car at Silverstone and doubt I'll get it sorted intime if I go that route.  

- When installing the springs I ensured the ears on the spring plate and shock lined up with the ends of the spring. I also bought new springs plates from VW classic parts.

- I didn't do anything special with lining up the top mount, just plonked it on and put a vw shock/topmount bush nut and then put the top plate and nut on when installed in the car. I used my impact gun as the allen head is rounded on the shock with the issue. I guess the shock could have spun and the garage today suggested I used mole grips with a rag on the shock body to make sure and torque up properly.

- One remark - when I did the job to switch over to H&R springs, from eibach, altough the noise was still happening with eibach, i noticed a normal nut had been used on top of the bearing rather than the special VW bush nut. It would have been like this since the shocks were first installed a good 4 years ago and was the reason i changed the spring plates as they were misshapen. Could my shock be fecked? 

- Last Q - the garage said the camber is normally setup on the top mount placement hence my q above on not doing anything special when locating the topmount. I thought we did camber on the 2 bolts on the bottom of the shock on these cars?

 

Do coilovers have the same setup as the spring plate used to convert later corrados to early spring design? 

 

 

 

[1xshaunx1 27]

My coilovers use the original top mount and plates. 
Camber as you say is with the bottom two bolts on the shocker 

[Dox 22]

They’re not handed, so you can swap struts side to side and see if the noise moves?

Edited August 16, 2022 by Dox

[_Matt_ 26]

OK I took the shocks off and rebuilt from scratch to torques. I noted the top spring plate was very difficult to remove from the threads the of the Bilstein shock - they are a wider thread than stock. This is probably why the assembly wasn't bolted in fully secure.

 

I had some replacement caps from the mk3 that fitted over the threads nicely. I rolled the car back and forth before torquing the bolt for these.

 

I put it back together with the shocks swapped over to opposite sides and set the camber to zero degrees (in the air with a jack under wishbone- quick and dirty).

 

Went for a spin. It did clonk again once as I first reversed, but a lighter clonk like the spring reseating itself. It was then fine for thr rest of the test drive. I was pretty rough with it to test. Fingers crossed but have been here before...

 

 

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[fendervg 29]

Yeah, I remember a long time ago that when fitting Bilsteins you need to change the spring plate depending on the year of the car - this may have been your issue.

[_Matt_ 26]

Wish I bougbt koni T/As now and avoided this issue. But just been for a another spin and no noises and steering feels way way better too. The top plates above probably could have been drilled out wider to allow proper fitment. In 4 years this has never been right. Perhaps on first install the garage were able to use an impact gun to force it down.

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[_Matt_ 26]

For god sake it's still clonking on occasional reversing. The car has been fine but took it to Silverstone today and reversing into spot - crack.

It actually more of a crack noise than clonk.

The car has been on a shacker plate and drives fine straight ahead. My thoughts are now perhaps sticking rear calipers - they so squeek when I am driving - a job I havent got round to. Or cracked subframe? But surely that would make noises all the time.

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[Dox 22]

If it’s not pad slap, then I’d look at wishbone movement, the bush centre slapping on the bolt?

you could also swap pads side to side to eliminate that?

[Dox 22]

If you’ve powdercoatd the subframe it could be crushing reducing the torque as it does so?

 

id want metal to metal contact before torquing, prove the issue then spray wax to prevent corrosion if you want to.

[_Matt_ 26]

I've not powdercoated on the corrado. I didnt really know about it when I started out. I have checked torque on all bolts though.

It is odd how a long journey causes it. I read on vw vortex a vw service bulletin describing my situation to be dry bearings and installation of a new bearings. It could well be thst as this started after new bearings were installed amongst other things.

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[Dox 22]

Something else, are the inner CVs shifting / bolts tight?

[_Matt_ 26]

I'll check tomorrow but this happened on the original driveshafts as well. What about the gearbox or clutch fork? Its probably going to need specialist attention at this rate.

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