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[terry paget]

As the car has recently passed the MOT, could you not carry on using it until you,re in a more robust state to do the job.?

Yes I could, though the noise is a bit embarrassing, worrying too. The car passed MOT 78 miles ago, after a long struggle, see recent thread. Son Ben was using it, he complained of a noise and brought it to me for diagnosis and rectification. It seems unlikely that it would be a failed wishbone. The sound is more like a loose droplink, though it clearly comes from front right.

[Doctor Gollum]

No need to make life so damn difficult

Tighten the droplink nuts on both sides and plan for the wishbone change as that vertical bush is knackered regardless of how MoTd the car is.

[Kevin Wood]

If that is a newish drop link, beware that it might have failed quickly. I had a pattern pair that failed inside a year. Meyle HD ones currently fitted seem better.

Also worth checking the ARB bushes, although they rarely seem to fail.

Brake calliper can rattle if the slide pins have dried out.

Wishbone bush doesn't look too clever but I've never had one bad enough to rattle. If you put a new wishbone on that'll also eliminate the ball joint, of course.

[Nick W]

A badly worn strut can rattle and knock. My NSF one was so bad it had NO damping, and had worn through the hard chrome plating on the piston which I could rattle (by hand) in the bush. It's not the first time I've seen that, and is why replacing all of the wear components at the same time is recommended over doing them piecemeal.

[terry paget]

Rejoice! Fault traced and cured.

Following Doc G's suggestion above, it occurred to me that the drop links are joined by the anti roll bar, so a loose nut on the LH drop link might cause the RH link to clonk. And so it proved. The upper nut on the LH drop link was loose, I torqued it up, road tested car, clonk gone.

My thanks to all for advice. I regard it as mean and unhelpful of the car to clonk on the right when the fault was on the left, but there you go.

[Doctor Gollum]

See, I can be helpful 

 

[TheBoy]

The noise is just like I have known before with loosely fitted drop links.

In which case its a loose droplink nut, or a knackered droplink. That droplink rattle is pretty distinctive and unique to droplinks.

[TheBoy]

Ah, teach me to post without reading all pages.

Glad its sorted

[sg61]

Will keep an eye on these posts as I seem to have a similar clonk - although I have bigger problems to sort out first!

[mandula]

To rule drop links and anti-roll bar bushings out, just detach either one drop link and see if clonk noise is still there. If it's not, you have faulty drop link(s) and/or anti-roll bar bushing(s).

[terry paget]

To rule drop links and anti-roll bar bushings out, just detach either one drop link and see if clonk noise is still there. If it's not, you have faulty drop link(s) and/or anti-roll bar bushing(s).

Thank you; excellent tip.
And what was the clonk I was hearing?

It was the RH anti-roll bar end banging on the wishbone, when suddenly released as the loose LH drop link slipped.