Strange noise, halp!

So in the last two days, my Celica has developed a very scary noise.

It's a knocking/popping from under the car in the front end somewhere. It's not VERY loud, but i can feel it through my pedals. I can't feel it through the steering wheel, and the car still feels as solid as ever, no strange looseness or anything.

It only happens under load. If i'm coasting in gear or in neutral, no noise. Turning right or left has no bearing on it.

My swaybars are solid, the motor mounts are no more shot than they've always been, and everything under the hood is buttoned up.

Any ideas? I'm going to jack it up tomorrow, and just looking for things to look at at this point.

Sounds similar to a CV joint that is bound up, bottomed out or otherwise damaged. Probably due to the bad motor mounts allowing the CV joints to move quite a bit more under load. Try fixing them with some window weld and see what happens.

turboswede wrote: Sounds similar to a CV joint that is bound up, bottomed out or otherwise damaged. Probably due to the bad motor mounts allowing the CV joints to move quite a bit more under load. Try fixing them with some window weld and see what happens.

So basically, stop driving it immediately?

Is the noise always there? You say turning has no bearing on it - does that mean the noise is present while going straight as well as turning left and right?

Does the noise change with car speed, engine speed or neither?

I'm guessing motor mounts. Time for an order to McMaster.com for some urethane.

TJ wrote: Is the noise always there? You say turning has no bearing on it - does that mean the noise is present while going straight as well as turning left and right? Does the noise change with car speed, engine speed or neither?

It's always there while i'm accelerating, regardless if i'm going straight, left, right. It's never there if i'm cruising or decelerating, or standing still.

Speed doesn't have any bearing on it, engine or otherwise. Just a constant popping/clunking if i put my foot down at all.

Dr. Hess wrote: I'm guessing motor mounts. Time for an order to McMaster.com for some urethane.

I'm going to have the car up on a lift Friday, i drove the Deathscort today. It may be the mounts, but i'm not real optimistic about that. It's already got poly inserts in the front and rear, but on the other hand, when i installed them, they didn't seem to do much but vibrate like crazy. My side mounts may be totally shot, and is fairly likely, though.

I just would have thought that if they finally bit the dust that hard, the car would feel different to drive, and it doesn't. I've got no more motor movement than i always have (at least what i can tell from the driver's seat).

CV joints definitely make sense, too, but after inspection, the boots are intact and there's still grease in there. God knows how old they are though, and the car WAS drastically lowered about 7 months ago, so they may have finally just bit the dust.

I'm hoping motor mounts is correct though. I'll just drive the car to storage and not worry about it, since i'm going with billet mounts for the swap anyways.

Bad CV joints would make more noise during turns. This seems to be powertrain related since it occurs under load no matter what maneuvering you make.

Are you sure it's not misfiring?

socalwrench wrote: Bad CV joints would make more noise during turns. This seems to be powertrain related since it occurs under load no matter what maneuvering you make. Are you sure it's not misfiring?

That was running through my head, but unfortunately AND luckily, i haven't had many issues with any of my cars in this area, so i just really didn't know. I would have thought that bad cv joints would have been making that same noise even while coasting if i was turning.

I'm sure it's not misfiring, the motor is still running smooth, and it's definitely a popping/clunking coming from below.

Buddy of mine thought it might be the diff popping, but i would imagine that would be happening regardless of load status, yes?

It will also do a single pop sometimes the first time the car moves in awhile. For instance, if i've parked at work, and go to leave, put it in reverse, the movement is accompanied by a single pop.

Dr. Hess wrote: I'm guessing motor mounts. Time for an order to McMaster.com for some urethane.

+1