No kidding, I'm hoping there's some way I can come from the knuckle/pinion side and work backwards instead of having to pull the wheel/column and deal with removing all the interior crap, lol. Relatively speaking the knuckle side has a fair amount of room to wrench on.

 

Still nothing? i have the same clunk and noticed it after the installation of my V3 sways. i've looked through all the reccomended culprits but nothing. I honestly only notice it when going through steeper speed bumps never when turning.

 

Nope, but the part is to be delivered sometime today (4/2) so hopefully soon thereafter I'll be able to get the thing installed. Hopefully this will be the answer to the damn noise.

 

Well this is the old one that's still on the column; overall it looks alright, possibly a little bit of flex. I'm still going to change it out though. If this doesn't fix the noise, all that is left is the rack being bad as everything in the front suspension had now been replaced.

 

Good luck on the install and keep us posted with your findings.

 

That piece looks fin to me, try driving up on some ramps and have your friend twist the steering wheel while you are under the car. The cluck comes from inside the steering rack, I bought a remanufactured rack from ebay and it still makes the same noise. i wouldn't waste your time changing that plastic piece

You know how you turn the steering wheel with the car off and the wheel locks? I have to turn my wheel very far before it does, which is strange

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wQR-cIws0Nc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Yeah, we got it changed out, nothing changed. The noise is in the rack, I just ordered another one. There's nothing else that can make a noise from the front end at this point. Everything, and I mean everything is new except for the rack. After we swapped the collar out, I crawled under the car and held the inner tie rod while my friend turned the wheel back and forth. Doing that you can actually feel the clunk in the rack via the inner tie rod. Oh well, I worked my way back trying to isolate the noise, and we found the source. Since I've been the only owner of the car since brand new, I'm familiar with all of its quirks, this clunking noise is something that has come on over time, and since everything else has changed out I know it's the rack.

That's strange that you have to turn the wheel so far over to lock; you may want to re-check your installation.

 

I want to recenter my steering rack once the weather gets warmer to see if that will help. I have like 1.3 turns one way and 1.7 turns the other way.

Did you buy a remanufactured or new from the dealer? They are like 2k from the dealer with tie rods included

 

I went with the Rack Doctor. I've used the company in the past without complaint and his reputation around car forums is pretty good, and his prices are very reasonable.

 

Even though my VIN fell in line with this TSB, this wasn't the culprit for the noise, but for those who've followed along with this thread this may be the answer for you.

 

Have you changed your front lower ball joints?

 

Yup, this is what has been changed so far:

New ball joints
New wheel bearings
SPL LCA's changed to Whiteline's
New inner tie rods
New outer tie rods
New steering column collar
New rack and pinion
New steering bushings
New Hotchkis sways
New endlinks

On top of checking literally every nut and bolt on the front end. But like I said, the rack being bad was my issue. But at least the whole front end is now new, lol.

 

How did yuou center your steering rack? Did you count the turns of the actual rack?

 

The way it was shipped it was already centered. My steering wheel was lashed with a cord at dead-center and I just joined the knuckle to the rack, viola. I didn't have to count or adjust anything, thankfully.

 

I'm having a similar issue. You said you replaced your ball joints. Does this include the ball joint on the compression rod? It was always my understanding that one could not be replaced. You would have to replace the entire piece. Did you replace the entire compression rod or somehow replace just the ball joint? I have ordered a new OEM compression rod and hopefully that solves my issue. I will keep you posted how it turns out. Let us know if you ever figure this out.

 

I replaced the old compression rods with new ones; I removed the OEM rubber bushings and replaced them with at first SPL solid bushings and now Whitelines. To the best of my knowledge you cannot replace the compression rod ball joint. My old ball joints weren't really worn, but I wanted to have peace of mind so I went ahead and replaced them anyway.

Oh, and the solution to my noise was replacing the steering rack. I figured it has to be the rack that was the noise culprit as I literally have replaced my entire front suspension and the noise persisted until the rack replacement. Now my front and is nice and quiet again.

 

Thank you sir. Im really hoping mine is the compression rod ball joint. Will find out soon. Thx again.

 

So after ~5k with my sways the knock has gotten worse to the point where passengers notice it when turning and slight bumps

 

What have you checked/replaced so far? Figuring that out and working backwards will help with diagnosing what's wrong with your car.