Steering Noise - 1992 Accord

[steve3140]

I have a strange noise in my front end. Its hard to describe, but sounds like the creak you get when you are breaking a bolt/nut loose. I thought it might be a bad bushing (I also had some squeaking) so I replaced all the bushings with polyurethane (lubed with lithium grease) which took care of the squeak, but I still have the creak.

I hear the creaking while driving down the road and turning the steering wheel, sitting at a standstill, or sitting within engine off and rocking the steering wheel ). I been under the car but could not isolate the noise. I did note the power steering fluid noted a burnt smell - but the car has 285K on it and it is probably original / needs to be flushed.

As far as the steering / suspension, the following has been replaced - both wheel bearings and lower ball joints (2 years ago) cv joints and upper ball joints (1 year ago) and tie rod ends last fall. And over the last 2 weeks, all bushings (stabilizer links, lower control arm, radius arm, upper control arm, strut mounting plate... )

Other than the creak, the car rides and steers great, no vibration, shimmy, play in the steering, or other noises...

I am stumped on this one... I keep thinking bad rack, but all the searching I have done "creaking" isn't a typical symptom. A rack or stabilizer bushing? or something else... possibly a "new" part has failed already?

Any suggestions?

Thanks

[steve3140]

Bad tie rod end....

[jeffcoslacker]

Typically creaks in FWD McPherson strut suspension when turning the wheel come from strut mount bushings, rack mount bushings, and coil spring land isolators...

If you find nothing there, start looking in less likely places...steering coupler u-joint (if it has one, I don't know), engine cradle bushings, steering column bearings/bushings, etc...

If that's the worst it can do with 285K, I'd learn to ignore it...

[jeffcoslacker]

Just for grins watch the coil springs when someone turns the wheel...sometimes a bearing plate will get stuck and the spring "winds up" with the steering rather than turning on the bearing plate...this produces some interesting noises...

And I've noticed almost every older Accord I've looked at lately has the bottom turn of the coil spring broken off in front on one or both sides...

I'd assume you'd have seen that during the other work, but have a look anyways...

[viper-blue]

I have the same problem with my prelude. Looked at everything today and its an inner tie-rod. Man it was noisy as hell, at least they are cheap.

[steve3140]

Originally Posted by jeffcoslacker

Just for grins watch the coil springs when someone turns the wheel...sometimes a bearing plate will get stuck and the spring "winds up" with the steering rather than turning on the bearing plate...this produces some interesting noises...

And I've noticed almost every older Accord I've looked at lately has the bottom turn of the coil spring broken off in front on one or both sides...

I'd assume you'd have seen that during the other work, but have a look anyways...

I was about 90% correct in my last post... it was not the outer tie rod end, but the inner.

- I thought it was the outer at first since the grease zerk was missing and assumed it had gone dry / gotten wet (its LLT from AZ) so I started there. turned out to be in inner rod. After some thought on replacing both the inner ends (remember it has 285K on it), and the burnt smelling power steering fluid, I went ahead and for an extra $100, replaced the rack and pinion. I think it took me 3 hours and was a fairly simple job (I did flush the systen and cleaned the resevoir throughly).

Rides great... steers great... no noises....

Thanks again for all your help