jseklund

Guys, I'm almost out of the woods I think. I just replaced all of my control arms, my tie rods, the sway bar links, my power steering rack, and the passenger side front wheel bearing on my 2004 A6 Quattro 2.7T.

The car wasn't self centering at first, but after getting it aligned and driving it a bit, it's going much better. Everything seems to be fine with a couple of small issues that I'm not sure what the cause is.

The biggest issue is that I get a clunk when I go over a small bump. I can feel it in the steering wheel and pedal sometimes and it sounds like it is coming from inside the dash area almost. If I go over a large bump or pot hole, it does not make the noise and drives fine. If I go over a small crack in the road, or a small frost heave or something like that, it clunks.

I also notice that at highway speeds the steering wheel would move about 1/4" maybe left and right when you were driving straight. I guess this has been called tramlining? I've had it aligned and it still did it, but after driving for a while it has gone down and is almost gone, but the car runs rough/vibrates a little at high speed (over 45 or so).

I jacked the car, re-torqued all of the bolts including the two top bolts on the steering rack (I couldn't seem to get on the bottom bolt, but the 2 tops are very, very tight) and even pulled the strut towers out re-installed.

While I had the strut tower out, I looked for signs of the upper control arms hitting the bracket, since I put on adjustable arms and they mention in the instructions you may need to cut out a small piece of the bracket to give the new arms enough room to travel. I saw no signs of impact on either the tower or the arms. I did notice that when they did the alignment and adjusted the control arms, the ball joints were not straight up and down...so I straightened them and retightened the adjustment bolts. I re-installed everything and jacked the wheel all the way up with a jack, literally lifting the car off the stands, and even with that much force the arms do not even come close to the bracket, so I think that theory is eliminated.

Any ideas on what I should look at? I've replaced about everything with new parts, except the steering rack which was refurbished, and I don't get what would cause a clunk at low speeds and small bumps, but not at higher speeds or with bigger bumps....

Any thoughts are appreciated, thanks!

pearlwhitesix

my top two steering rack bolts would work themselves loose and clunk until I retightened them with threadlocker red.

jseklund

I will pull those and put threadlocker on them. They seem to be torqued though....I seriously hope it is not that bottom bolt that is so hard to get to that wasn't torqued enough. I can't even get a socket back on that bolt, I fear that bolt.

It really almost sounds like it is in the dash sometimes. It doesn't happen when I am turning at all, or over big bumps. It's so strange. Just random bumps....almost like when the suspension decompresses coming out of a bump or something, rather than when it compresses hitting something, if that makes sense.

SloopJohnB@mac.com

Empty everything out of the glovebox and the car, especially the side pockets on the doors. Might be surprised…
But the steering wheel play leads me to agree it's either the steering rack mounting or inside the steering rack.
Something may just be broken as well, a mounting bracket, a front motor mount, etc.

Airbag

i had this when i did my front end also. i did the struts myself and i found the end of the springs were not seated in the purchase correctly. worked its way in after a few hundred miles of bumps and is all sitting proper now and silent
also make sure you torque with the car on the ground

Gsrob

Did you replace the complete tie rods or just the outer? I had a ridiculous amount of noise that seemed to originate from the dash (or just in front of it) that I originally thought was an axle. This was after completely replacing the control arms on the front end. It turned out the the right tie-rod was making so much noise and clacking/clunking at lower speeds and eventually at higher speeds as well. After replacing the tie rod end, the noise completely went away. I had it aligned and all was well for a couple weeks. However, the noise is slightly back and it's clear that I should've replaced the inner tie rod as well since it's the exact same noise, just to a lesser degree. I would've done so as well if I had an extra set of bellows for the steering rack. Regardless, I am going to hold off until I get some new tires since I would need to reinstall the tie rods and have to get another alignment. I'd give the tie rod a look, especially if you only replace the outers.

jseklund

Great responses guys! Thanks.

I was thinking of taking the radio out and looking behind there to see if something was loose. My other thought was the U-Joint connection to the rack...like I said, I seriously hope it is NOT that one bolt under the rack. I had so much trouble getting to that...

After driving it some more, I can feel it in the steering wheel and pedals, and both me and my gf believe it is something thumping right at our feet on the floor board....which is where I believe the lower rear control arm bolts to the car (roughly) - but I have checked this twice and it is torqued and looks good.

The funny thing is it NEVER happens turning the car, which I would think is what would happen if the ball joints were screwed up or something like that.

Airbag - if that is all it is and it works itself out, I will be beyond thrilled. I could not torque everything on the ground because if I put the car on the ground I can't get under there to torque anything

I did, however, put a jack under the tire and jack the wheel up almost to the point where it lifted the car off the stand, and torqued like that. Not ideal, but it's the best I can do without an actual lift, or without digging a hole in the ground

Huskerbob

Did you loosen any sub-frame bolts when you did the suspension work? Take a look at those.

Airbag

take a look a the end of those coil springs and see where they are sitting. it will be obvious where they need to be. Wont be an issue if you didnt take the struts apart though

Gsrob

By far the easiest way to torque at ride height is to have the jack stands up front as you usually would and with the tire off, jack up the hub until the car lifts slightly off the jack stand on the given side. Without a lift it's really the easiest, quickest way without measuring everything precisely. That's what fcp recommended. Also, did you replace the inner tie rods? I've got the same symptoms. No noise when turning and very little to zero under any sort of throttle load.