Horrid Noise

[NobleGuy]

Went out for a drive today and wish I hadn't.
Round a roundabout, got a nasty sounding clonk and now the car makes a kind of 'clackety clackety' sound as if someone's following alongside poking a stick in the wheels. It stops when I take it out of gear or use the accelerator.

Any ideas anybody? Sounds expensive to me....

[sean_goodman]

assume in neutral then that you can ref it freely and it stays quite?
how bout when u are driving and press the clutch does it go awy then?

[NobleGuy]

sean_goodman said:

assume in neutral then that you can ref it freely and it stays quite?
how bout when u are driving and press the clutch does it go awy then?

Actually, my mistake. If I take it out of gear while moving the sound continues. It goes away when applying gas (even the tiniest amount is enough) or stopping completely. The car appears to drive as normal apart from this. The clackety nature of the noise slows down as the wheels slow down.

[alex s]

NobleGuy said:

sean_goodman said:

assume in neutral then that you can ref it freely and it stays quite?
how bout when u are driving and press the clutch does it go awy then?

Actually, my mistake. If I take it out of gear while moving the sound continues. It goes away when applying gas (even the tiniest amount is enough) or stopping completely. The car appears to drive as normal apart from this. The clackety nature of the noise slows down as the wheels slow down.

Have you got an open diff?

[NobleGuy]

alex s said:

NobleGuy said:

sean_goodman said:

assume in neutral then that you can ref it freely and it stays quite?
how bout when u are driving and press the clutch does it go awy then?

Actually, my mistake. If I take it out of gear while moving the sound continues. It goes away when applying gas (even the tiniest amount is enough) or stopping completely. The car appears to drive as normal apart from this. The clackety nature of the noise slows down as the wheels slow down.

Have you got an open diff?

Yes - was hoping that word wouldn't come up to be honest .

[alex s]

NobleGuy said:

alex s said:

NobleGuy said:

sean_goodman said:

assume in neutral then that you can ref it freely and it stays quite?
how bout when u are driving and press the clutch does it go awy then?

Actually, my mistake. If I take it out of gear while moving the sound continues. It goes away when applying gas (even the tiniest amount is enough) or stopping completely. The car appears to drive as normal apart from this. The clackety nature of the noise slows down as the wheels slow down.

Have you got an open diff?

Yes - was hoping that word wouldn't come up to be honest .

Sorry to say it does sound like it!!

[mgbond]

Exactly what happend to my diff. Went round a roundabout and had some wierd sudden under steer. drove back home and went to do a quick stop and pull into a gap in parked cars to let someone through and "Clunk" kept geting this clunk over and over again. I drove home to Portsmouth from Surrey like it which then ment new gearbox too.

Suggest you don't drive it and get it to a garage.

This maybe time to consider the other method of getting the box out by removing a cross beam of the chassis (as they do in the states) this should save you about a grand.

Also get your box shot peened while its out for added stength.

Sorry to here the news but its now an excuse for upgrade.

Bondy

[NobleGuy]

I think you've told me what I already suspected.
Thanks guys.

Any idea of likely cost?

Edited by NobleGuy on Saturday 5th January 17:01

[Mike Tuckwood]

While diff does sound likely, (or a driveshaft UJ?) just in case, go out and check that all your wheel nuts are tight. Its happened before!


Mike.

[mgbond]

NobleGuy said:

I think you've told me what I already suspected.
Thanks guys.

Any idea of likely cost?

Edited by NobleGuy on Saturday 5th January 17:01

Here is my bill. I did have the fan upgrade and a 24k service but if you run through it you can remove those bits. It will still add up to over 3k.

If ever I have to get my gearbox out again, I shall be contact 1G racing to find out what bar they cut and try to get drawing of the brackets they have design to bolt it back in.

Bondy

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i20

[NobleGuy]

Mike Tuckwood said:

While diff does sound likely, (or a driveshaft UJ?) just in case, go out and check that all your wheel nuts are tight. Its happened before!


Mike.

I'll jack the car up tomorrow to double-check this. Thanks for the tip.

It's ironic that it happened today as I was umming and ahhing about passing the car onto a car buying company on the web - gave me a quote of 23300 which I thought was quite low (but not unexpected). Then I thought life's too short to worry about money and went for the drive instead.
I'm not poor (but am quite tight ) and have a reasonably big mortgage to pay off sometime this century (23300 could've made a bit of a dent in that). And my advert (now removed) on PH went on about having a remarkably reliable M12 compared some other unlucky owners. Hey-ho.

P.S. Does anybody think it might be worth doing a JNM level 3 upgrade (420bhp-ish I think was quoted)along with the diff? Was thinking about doing this anyway in the event that I kept the car instead of selling. Wondering if combining the two might save a significant amount of money on labour. Could do with a service on top too.

Edited by NobleGuy on Saturday 5th January 19:25

[joust]

Approach to cutting chassis is outlined here

http://www.nobleforums.com/showthread.php?t=2753&a...

Hope that helps.

J

[mgbond]

joust said:

Approach to cutting chassis is outlined here

www.nobleforums.com/showthread.php?t=2753&highlight=cut+chassis+gearbox

Hope that helps.

J

Cheers Justin, I'm more interested in the brackets that they have designed for puting the strut back in.

Bondy

[NobleGuy]

joust said:

Approach to cutting chassis is outlined here

http://www.nobleforums.com/showthread.php?t=2753&a...

Hope that helps.

J

That's great. Was searching for this but couldn't find it.
Thanks very much - it seems to me to be such a simple workaround provided the chassis is not compromised which, according to the thread, it doesn't. I'm quite happy with a reweld to be honest, although the replacement bolt in version again seems like a good idea.

Edited to add that of course, as mentioned in the thread, the idea of bolt-in removable chassis sections would undoubtedly have added to the price of the M12 so.....

Edited by NobleGuy on Sunday 6th January 11:55

[mgbond]

NobleGuy said:

joust said:

Approach to cutting chassis is outlined here

www.nobleforums.com/showthread.php?t=2753&highlight=cut+chassis+gearbox

Hope that helps.

J

That's great. Was searching for this but couldn't find it.
Thanks very much - it seems to me to be such a simple workaround provided the chassis is not compromised which, according to the thread, it doesn't. I'm quite happy with a reweld to be honest, although the replacement bolt in version again seems like a good idea.

Worth a try, why not email 1G racing and ask if they would let you have the drawing for the bracket or at least some pictures.

I could get them made in our machine shop.

Bondy

[Adrian W]

mgbond said:

NobleGuy said:

joust said:

Approach to cutting chassis is outlined here

http://www.nobleforums.com/showthread.php?t=2753&a...

Hope that helps.

J

That's great. Was searching for this but couldn't find it.
Thanks very much - it seems to me to be such a simple workaround provided the chassis is not compromised which, according to the thread, it doesn't. I'm quite happy with a reweld to be honest, although the replacement bolt in version again seems like a good idea.

Worth a try, why not email 1G racing and ask if they would let you have the drawing for the bracket or at least some pictures.

I could get them made in our machine shop.

Bondy

Most motorbikes have a removerable frame rail to get the engine out, would be easy to copy, and would have been develped to death, some sort of overlap with a tube that slides over it. it proberbly has to be a lot stronger than you would need in the Noble as a bike only has two rails.

[NobleGuy]

mgbond said:

NobleGuy said:

joust said:

Approach to cutting chassis is outlined here

http://www.nobleforums.com/showthread.php?t=2753&a...

Hope that helps.

J

That's great. Was searching for this but couldn't find it.
Thanks very much - it seems to me to be such a simple workaround provided the chassis is not compromised which, according to the thread, it doesn't. I'm quite happy with a reweld to be honest, although the replacement bolt in version again seems like a good idea.

Worth a try, why not email 1G racing and ask if they would let you have the drawing for the bracket or at least some pictures.

I could get them made in our machine shop.

Bondy

Sounds like a good idea.

As an aside, how long does a diff fix take roughly?
Miss the car already you see, especially as I've got bright sunshine outside.......

Edit:
Just emailed them to ask for the drawings or photo(s). Some people mentioned in the thread that it might not save time first time around, although it might add a bit of value when it comes to resale to be able to say that the gearbox and clutch can be easily removed without breaking the bank.

Edited by NobleGuy on Sunday 6th January 12:25

[paulcundy]

alex s said:

NobleGuy said:

sean_goodman said:

assume in neutral then that you can ref it freely and it stays quite?
how bout when u are driving and press the clutch does it go awy then?

Actually, my mistake. If I take it out of gear while moving the sound continues. It goes away when applying gas (even the tiniest amount is enough) or stopping completely. The car appears to drive as normal apart from this. The clackety nature of the noise slows down as the wheels slow down.

Have you got an open diff?

Have you got a broken diff? - Yes.

[NobleGuy]

Mike Tuckwood said:

While diff does sound likely, (or a driveshaft UJ?) just in case, go out and check that all your wheel nuts are tight. Its happened before!


Mike.

Checked the wheels. Both rears seem to be on tightly with no lateral movement.
Noticed that the passenger side rear appeared to be locked, while the driver side rear spun freely. Is this normal?

Couldn't raise the front as it's too low for the jack I'm using, but did notice the front passenger wheel moved a very tiny bit (really minimal) - only noticeable due to a quiet thudding sound when I pulled/pushed it. Drivers side front seems completely solid. Did have the front tyres changed last week but to be honest I don't think wheel's are the cause of this. Wish they were......

[JLSELAN]

Since an open diff should allow either rear wheel to rotate independently, it sounds like you no longer have one--too bad .
BTW, I have seen how the factory in SA "did" the removable cross brace to simplify tranny removal in the last production M400 for the U.S., and they did not use any special brackets--the cross brace just bolts into the chassis at the corners where it used to be welded.

Edited by JLSELAN on Monday 7th January 16:55