mortymower

I just bought an 87 951 and when i go over bumpy roads, there is a loud clicking sound coming from the front end, it can only be heard with the windows down for the most part though. It sounds kind of like two peices of chain clinking together. The PO raced this car in DEs for a few years so its been through some hard cornering. Is this ball joints and if so how hard are they to do myself

turbo8

here is a tutorial on how to replace them, you aslo can purches rebuild kits from them

http://www.rennbay.com/info_pages.php?pages_id=13

tyro

Check your rubber antiroll bar bushings.

The bushing under the PS fluid reservoir tends to get coated with fluid and turn to mush..

superloaf

yeah, i second the sway bar theory. i just broke one of the brackets that hangs down and holds sway bar to body. i heard clicking on tight turns over bumps, thought it was ball joint but just a broken bracket.

BTW if your tempted to buy the brackets from aftermarket houses for $29, think again & get them from the dealer. $12 from overinflated beverly hills dealer. took 3 days to get it but still quicker than most shipping.

or $6 from sunset porsche in seattle.

mortymower

what if its not broken (will check tomorrow)

Mighty Shilling

Most likely, ball joints. send em to travis, and get the metallic bushings from Rennbay. they're great!

mortymower

whos travis, and so I just send him my control arms and the kit from rennbay and he does the work?? how much

ApexCars

Travis is Rennbay

mortymower

o ok is it hard to do myself or should i just pay the money, and which kit is the best, it will be mostly street but some Auto X and a little racing maybe so i want them to be strong

superloaf

so did you trace the noise to your ball joints?

the rennbay kits are not hard to do yourself. just have to make sure your control arms aren't damaged. if you drive too long on bad joints the control arm will get damaged & then can't be reused.

very nice kits and they do last. can't remember which i used--i think the super deluxe as i wanted to replace the actual ball part of the joint.

i'm sure lots of people will chime in here though since probably everyone on this forum has used these!

Tom M'Guinn

When my sway bar bushing went bad, they made a loud clunk/knock when turning low speed over bumps. Write up in link below. Not sure what you describe is the same though. Could be ball joints, or just something loose under the hood?

Oddjob

Dont be in a big hurry to tear your control arms apart - bad control arm balljoints pop/knock, I dont think they will click.

They will feel like someone is hitting the control arm with a ballpeen hammer, and will usually do it when making tight slow speed turns (parking lots, driveways, etc). You will feel it through the steering wheel. When the factory bushing goes bad and deforms, the balljoint does not rotate freely, so it will bind, then pop as it is pivoted under load.

I would also keep looking for other possible sources for the clicking sound.

If you do isolate the problem to the control arm balljoints, do a search on here for the rebuild kits. There have been various very premature failures and seating problems with some of these kits, based on which bushing material used and condition of the control arm sockets.