Swapped the GLE wheels (ones with the fat five-spoke design) from my 2000 onto my buddy's 2001 SE (ones with thinner six-spokes) and now his car is making a noise that starts around 15mph and gets louder and higher-pitched with speed. I doubt it's an engine noise because it doesn't change with the RPM or stop when he's cruising and lets off the gas. Plus it has only started making the noise since we swapped the wheels and replaced the battery.
Seems to get a little quieter when making right turns, so I'm thinking it's rubbing somewhere on the right side. Checked the tires and they're not rubbing the wheel well and the tire sizes are the same as the SE wheels.
Is there a difference in offset for some reason between these two sets of wheels? I mean, the 00 and 01 cars are functionally identical, aren't they? In fact, I'm pretty sure when I did the rear disc brake conversion on my GLE, I got my parts from a junkyard '01 SE and I've never had problems with anything rubbing.
Any ideas would be appreciated because I'm kind of scratching my head here. Thanks guys.
Did the tires and wheels stay together or were different tires remounted? The reason I say this is because I owned a set of Goodyear GT tires once on a '99 Grand Am GT. I remounted them one time, only to here a screetching/ crunching sound. It got more pronounced the faster the wheel turned. As it turned out the part of the tire that met the rim had very tiny raised rubber hash marks around the circumference of the tire edge where it seated against the different rim. On different wheels these tires actually squirmed a bit each time the tires rotated (caused by the friction between the wheel and those hash marks. Nothing short of new tires corrected that awful sound.
No, we didn't change the tires at all. The reason that we swapped the wheels was that my tires have better tread and he needs to pass inspection, so no tire changing was done during the swap. I have neither the tools nor the know-how to mount/dismount tires anyway.
Also, I notice the noise pretty much goes away when I go around right curves, like exit ramps, and I think the noise is coming from the driver side. Actually sounds like it's coming from under the hood. It seems louder inside the car than outside, but, again, only thing I changed was the wheels so I'm pretty stumped.
Looks like it's actually most likely a bearing. Not sure why we didn't notice the noise before, but I pulled the hub off my old Alti (RIP Simone ) and hopefully I'll get nice enough weather and time this week to swap that in there. We'll see if that does the trick.
The dust shields are definitely rubbing from when I did the CV axles and was wrenching on them to get the spindle or whatever out. I'll have to remember to bend those back when I do the hub. Thanks for the help.
I cannot, for the life of me, get the hub of my buddy's car free from the bottom-most bolt on the control arm(?) that the whole assembly swivels on when steering. My best idea was bolting the bottom hole of the hub to the top hole of the strut, getting the scissor jack between the control arm and strut and trying to use however many thousands of lbs the jack is rated at to push the two apart. Then when that wouldn't budge, I left the jack there, still exerting a ton of downward force, and mercilessly beat the control arm with a 25lb weight I use to calibrate hospital scales. Nothing.
When I pulled the hub from my old car to replace this one, it was a bit of a pain but it came free after a few minutes of manhandling it, but this is ridiculous. I have doused it with brake parts cleaner, WD-40 and PB-Blaster and I'm letting it sit overnight I guess. Partly because the amount of load I was putting on the scissor jack actually mangled and broke it. Yes, I broke the jack with how much force I was using to separate the hub from this bolt and it didn't budge.
When you say "control arm", are you referring to the "steering knuckle" with 6 bolts, 4 on the bottom, in a square pattern, and two vertical bolts at the top (they torque at around 40 ft-lb or so), and you are working with one of the bottom bolts? The next component toward the engine is the strut assembly (think shock/spring assy). Then there is the lower ball joint that connects the tie rod to the steering rack. Which bolt, specifically, are you trying to remove with such force? I'm having trouble locating the exact piece to which you refer.
In the hub, there are two bolts holding the top of it to the strut, one connecting it to the tie rod and then there's one more bolt that the hub pivots on to turn. That last one is the one I can't get out of the hub. Whatever that bolt is attached to below the hub is what I'm talking about. Not sure what it's called but it pivots up and down.
Once the hub nut is off and the cv axle out there are only 4 bolts that hold on the hub. The bottom one is the one I can't get out.
The AutoGuide.com network consists of the largest network of enthusiast-owned enthusiast-operated automotive communities.
AutoGuide.com provides the latest car reviews, auto show coverage, new car prices, and automotive news. The AutoGuide network operates more than 100 automotive forums where our users consult peers for shopping information and advice, and share opinions as a community.
) and hopefully I'll get nice enough weather and time this week to swap that in there. We'll see if that does the trick.
Linear Mode
