Interesting untraceable noise!

[MollyOwner]

Any ideas welcome on this one!

My 1967 convertible, after a ten mile run, started making a "loud clicking noise" as I slowed down for traffic lights. I seemed to feel the "clicks" through the steering wheel. A guess said front nearside or central. Checked car at side of road All appeared OK. Turned her around to limp home and the noise went. Checked again at home with car off the ground. Could not find anything amiss.
Further test drive. All OK for three miles then click click clickerty click. Again, checks revealed nothing.
Home slowly but after a minute the noise went and the rest of journey home uneventful.

Braking does not make any difference to the noise.

A long shot I know but ring any bells with anyone???

Thanks!

Stuart

[philthehill]

Some possible scenarios.
Check the tightness of the wheel nuts and examine the wheel nut seats for cracking. Make sure that you have the right wheel nuts.
Also check the welds/rivets where the wheel centre is attached to the rim for cracking.
Are the wheel bearings OK ?

[StillGotMy1stCar]

Just a few thoughts, if you had not felt it through the steering then it could be the speedo drive cable, could diagnose this by jacking up the rear wheels off the ground and use axle stands, carefully drive slowly and see if noise still persists.
Probably better off taking the brake drums off to see if anything is obviously wrong at the front though.
Regards John.

[MollyOwner]

Thanks John. Discs on front. At first i thought a large twig was trapped.
Speedo cable - certainly a possibility although the noise is possibly too loud for that.
Will work through yours and Phil's ideas tomorrow and see what transpires. Intermittent faults are so hard to find at times!!
My wife described the noise as a lot of twigs all tied together, being whipped against the underside of the car.
Cheers!!

[StillGotMy1stCar]

Didn’t realise you had disc brakes. The smallest of stones can get trapped between the disc and caliper housing and make some amazing sounds.

[RobThomas]

Silly one, but could it have been a stone in the tyre groove? Propshaft UJ? Gearbox tooth shrapnel? Broken piece of clutch bearing?

[MollyOwner]

Silly one, but could it have been a stone in the tyre groove? Propshaft UJ? Gearbox tooth shrapnel? Broken piece of clutch bearing?

Did consider a stone in tyre tread or between the pads possibly and when I reversed and turned car around, and noise went, wondered if that was the case
However, with the noise returning again it seems unlikely.
It's always hard to tell where noises come me from of course but its def front and not rear.
Was going to look this morning but lots of us have gone down with food poisoning during the night from a pub meal.

[palacebear]

Sorry to hear about the food poisoning... speedy recovery to you!
When you're back in your feet, this might be worth checking, particularly if you're running earlier type Marina calipers. Years ago I had a similar-sounding problem with a '72 Marina. Turned out to be worn or damaged (can't remember which - BL dealer diagnosis) brake pad retaining pins rotating and causing the spring clips to 'bounce' off the edges of the brake pads. New pins, clips and Unipart pads cured it... I had been running cheapish pattern pads previously.

[MollyOwner]

Sorry to hear about the food poisoning... speedy recovery to you!
When you're back in your feet, this might be worth checking, particularly if you're running earlier type Marina calipers. Years ago I had a similar-sounding problem with a '72 Marina. Turned out to be worn or damaged (can't remember which - BL dealer diagnosis) brake pad retaining pins rotating and causing the spring clips to 'bounce' off the edges of the brake pads. New pins, clips and Unipart pads cured it... I had been running cheapish pattern pads previously.

Thank you will check. These are Ford ones but still have springs that could become dislodged. Will check once I have finished my OBE award (open both ends!) LOL

[RobThomas]

I had food poisoning last month. Awful! Like a Space Shuttle launch...that was me!

[burnham28]

I had the smoking plimsolls when I visited India.

[Budgie]

I have a 1969 convertible with disc brakes and I too have an intermittent clicking noise which was noticed by my MOT tester during last years test. He spent some time spinning the nearside front wheel while trying to trace the clicking to no avail. He duly past the car and he stated that "god knows what it is but it's not detrimental to the car or driver" I can go for several days out in the car with nothing and then it appears. I'm just living with it as it's not loud and I've had it checked and okayed by the testing station so that's good enough for me.

[kennatt]

could be caliper . check bolts are tight

[MollyOwner]

Thank you for all your ideas.
Yesterday carried out a fairly exhaustive check on steering, suspension, road wheels, brakes, bearings etc found nothing amiss except for signs of a little movement on one cup of front UJ bearing on prop. Very little movement but from the polished ring you can see it's moving. Not anything that would make the said noise tho.
60 mile test drive went perfectly!!
Thank you for all your comments and suggestions. Much appreciated.

[oliver90owner]

Not anything that would make the said noise tho. 

But still needs rectifying at the earliest opportunity - like now! Propshaft runs at engine speed in top gear!

[philthehill]

As regards that turning cup of the U/J.
I would advise that you get that rectified as soon as possible as I suspect that the needle rollers/cup are worn out.
Ignoring the turning cup will inevitably lead to the U/J yoke becoming worn and then it will mean a new propshaft.

[MollyOwner]

Thank you both. Will replace it next week
Cheers

[MollyOwner]

I’ve been off the site for a while as I live quite a lot of my retirement time in Kefalonia.

Thanks for earlier comments .UJs etc were all changed.

The answer to my strange noise was eventually traced to the difference in heating from the alloy hub with the steel bearings. Replaced with cast ones and all was well...

... however recently a new untraceable metallic scraping strange noise has started on the offside on a right hand turn. Very strange. I posted it earlier today but mistakenly under the General section.

Always stuff to learn isn’t there !