clunk or thud coming from right rear (Federal Car)

[medida]

When I go around a corner I get a "thud" or "clunk" once in a while that appears to be coming from the right rear.  It is not all the time...but seems to happen more when the cornering is spirited

 

I have checked the battery, shock, mounts, radius arms, bulkhead bolts, ecu, siren, etc and tried to move them around (and could not).  Did not see any evidence of movement on either of them

 

I had done the bulkead repair....but this did not change anything.

 

I looked at the hub and bearing retainer...did not see anything here

 

THoughts?

 

hey are all solidly mounted

[mr.oogieboogie]

Engine mount or gearbox mount

[iainskea]

Silly suggestion - tool kit?

[Trevsked]

Engine and gearbox mount is my guess too.

Trevor.

[medida]

had not thought of the engine mount or transaxle mount.  However, from the location of the noise I think it would be the front transmission mount.  Will check it this weekend when I put it on the lift

thanks

[Günter]

There is no such thing like a 'Front transmission mount' ..it's only two on the gearbox and two on the engine.

So if your charcoalcanister,in LH wheelhousing, is mounted solid and the overflow bottle for the cooling, located in the RH rear wheelhousing next to the Tire is not loose, and the mounting bracket for the alarm-siren is fixed in Position, same as the ECM bracket and the plywood plate in top of the fueltank ..there must be something else that is comming of from its mount

[lotusespritse]

When I go around a corner I get a "thud" or "clunk" once in a while that appears to be coming from the right rear.  It is not all the time...but seems to happen more when the cornering is spirited

 

I have checked the battery, shock, mounts, radius arms, bulkhead bolts, ecu, siren, etc and tried to move them around (and could not).  Did not see any evidence of movement on either of them

 

I had done the bulkead repair....but this did not change anything.

 

I looked at the hub and bearing retainer...did not see anything here

 

THoughts?

 

hey are all solidly mounted

 

Did you ever find the cause of the clunk?  I have a similar clunk on my 98 with the same details you mentioned, and I just did the bulkhead mounting bracket modification with zero improvement to the clunk.

 

In my case, the clunk happens most commonly when going up a driveway and the body is being twisted.  It seems like the bulkhead mount would be the issue, but I even up-rated the bolts and made sure they were nice and tight. 

 

There's no clunk when I am accelerating or decelerating.  And it doesn't do it going straight down the road.

 

And if I try to bounce the car from the rear corners, nothing.

Edited January 26, 2015 by lotusespritse

[Guest modifiedv8engines]

Worth checking if its related to how much fuel is in the tank.

 

My 97 V8 does this occassionaly on the LHS over small bumps in the road.

 

Put in £40 quids worth of fuel and the noise seems to dissapear and in my case indicating the tank is moving about ...perhaps or the plywood that holds the tank in place has come loose.

[lotusespritse]

Worth checking if its related to how much fuel is in the tank.

 

My 97 V8 does this occassionaly on the LHS over small bumps in the road.

 

Put in £40 quids worth of fuel and the noise seems to dissapear and in my case indicating the tank is moving about ...perhaps or the plywood that holds the tank in place has come loose.

 

I don't see this being the cause of my particular problem.  My tank is full, and it's the same.  Plus, I don't have to be moving very fast at all to make the knocking noises.  If the tank was moving, it would take some type of jerk motion to cause that.  In my case, just crawling with almost no speed over an uneven surface (like going up a driveway at an angle) that puts torque on the chassis causes the knock.  And often it's more than one knock.

 

Based on that, it seems it would be the bulkhead, but that sucker is tight now with the shortened bracket and the higher strength bolts.

 

If mine were the engine mounts, I would expect it to make the clunk when accelerating hard or soft, but it never does.

Edited February 15, 2015 by lotusespritse

[HowardRoark]

My 99 V8 is doing the very same thing. Usually it clunks on the right side, when the car is turning, or twisted like going up a driveway. I have done the bulkhead fix so that shouldn't be it. I have no idea what is causing it??

[Stuart Monument]

Apologies for the following terminology as I am sure it will be wrong, however had a similar problem on my 1973 europa. When turning / under load at any speed I had a graunching / clunking noise. One minute I thought it was front and then back as the sound resonated through the cabin. I sprayed a dry type grease on the splines of the transaxle to drive shaft and it turn out this seems to have done the trick. Just thought I would pitch my 2 pence worth in as it was annoying the hell out of me at the time. Hopefully you have a similar easy fix

[lotusespritse]

I popped the boot/trunk on my car and drove around an uneven parking lot, and it wasn't clunking like it normally would.  I did adjust the latches on the car a while back, so maybe while the new adjustment makes it easier to open and close, it's giving the trunk lid room to knock around.

 

I'll have to keep playing with it, but if your Esprit knocks even though you've done the bulk head mod like me, it's an easy test to see if it's your trunk.

[lotusespritse]

My 99 V8 is doing the very same thing. Usually it clunks on the right side, when the car is turning, or twisted like going up a driveway. I have done the bulkhead fix so that shouldn't be it. I have no idea what is causing it??

 

I finally fixed the knocking on my car.  It wasn't the trunk lid in the end.

 

To fix it, I tightened everything I could: The cross member over the gearbox, the 2 body bolts on that same cross member, re-tightened the bulk head bolts (after upgrading from the weak spec of the stock bolts), and I also tightened the nuts for the bolts that are just above the gas tanks.  You can see the other end of the bolts when you open the door, but you do not need to hold those bolt heads when tightening the nuts over the tanks.  I had to loosen the vacuum reservoir to get my wrench on the nuts on the drivers side (US car).

[Guest modifiedv8engines]

As I said in my earlier posting .......possibly fuel tank related .....

[lotusespritse]

As I said in my earlier posting .......possibly fuel tank related .....

 

Just to make it clear, I did not do anything to tighten the fuel tanks.  The bolts above the tank that I mentioned in my post have nothing to do with the fuel tanks.