Front End Clunk/Pop, Cant track it down. Options

[jordisonjr]

For the past week or so i've had a random creak coming from the drivers side front suspension. Usually when turning the wheels, or turning and going up/down a bump such as my driveway. I greased everything up in the front end, and still no solution.

The other day I was driving and had to brake relatively hard, and there was a fairly loud 'pop'. Now, when I brake/take off hard there's a significant pop. I can takeoff from a stop gently, and sometimes there is a softer pop sound, and sometimes there's non at all. It also pops loud if I brake hard, and pops softly if I break gently. Also while stationary, if I turn the wheel to the left, at a specific point it will pop, and you can feel it through the steering wheel as well.

I crawled under the car a couple days ago and tried moving stuff around for about an hour, and could not manage to reproduce the noise. It's also seemed to have gotten worse since then. It seems to be related to moving forward/back, almost as if the LCA bushing is worn out, however, I changed these about 2 summers ago.

I'm curious if anyone has any insight as to what this could possibly be, before I take it in to have it diagnosed. I was leaning towards a ball joint, but the fact that there was no play/leaking in the joint, and i could not reproduce the noise, has me thinking otherwise. I will take a second look as it seems to have gotten worse since it first started.

Any input/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Jmk91]

Have you checked your r front strut mounts? There is a bearing thah could've went bad. Whenever you brake it shifts the weight of the car forward. Is it much worse when going over speed bumps or anything? Did you check your front brakes/rotors hit em softly with a rubber mallet and see if they are making the noise your hearing as well. Since you said you can feel it in the steering wheel my money is on the Mount but I could be wrong.

[jordisonjr]

Have you checked your r front strut mounts? There is a bearing thah could've went bad. Whenever you brake it shifts the weight of the car forward. Is it much worse when going over speed bumps or anything? Did you check your front brakes/rotors hit em softly with a rubber mallet and see if they are making the noise your hearing as well. Since you said you can feel it in the steering wheel my money is on the Mount but I could be wrong.

Struts and mounts were changed probably 3-4 years ago (without winter driving) but it is quite possible. Usually speed bumps don't make a difference. I haven't really noticed a pattern of what bumps cause it, its fairly random in that aspect.

Pads and Rotors were changed last summer, and I recently had to change a wheel stud on the passenger side, so maybe something in the caliper wasn't torqued down properly, although that wouldn't solve the pop upon acceleration.

How would I be able to tell if the mount has gone bad? When I replaced the old ones, they didn't look overly worn out or damaged, so I'd imagine these newer ones would be better condition in appearance.