Ford Escort (1993 - 2000) - 97 1.8 diesel estate LOUD clunking

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Sat 6 Feb 2010 13:05
97 1.8 diesel estate LOUD clunking - Englishbullterrier
A lot of the roads here in Latvia are treacherous with extremely bad surfaces. VERY VERY bumpy. The large chunks of frozen ice at present make it worse.

Yesterday I drove a (probably) overweight trailer back from Riga, about 100km. The load was far heavier than I intended. (It was full of large, hardwood, bird sculptues done by a local technical school.

Anyway, the rub of it is that I now have a very loud clunking/rattling noise that appears to be coming from the rear nearside (right hand side when viewed from the back).

It's only there when going over bumps (far far too many :-) and quiet in the smooth sections.

It's almost like as if I had lost a shock absorber top or bottom rubber mount, or maybe the shock itself could be shot ?

Wondered if I might benefit from some of you guys vast experience as to possible cause ?

(For those that saw my earlier thread, it starts 100% first time now it's warmer than -20c :-)

Edited by Webmaster on 06/02/2010 at 13:53

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Sat 6 Feb 2010 14:15
97 1.8 diesel estate LOUD clunking - Peter.N.
Pleased to hear that your starting problem is resolved, regarding the new one, I can only really suggest that you get someone to bounce the back of the car while you look/listen underneath. It could well be a shock absorber mount as you were making them work very hard.
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Sat 6 Feb 2010 14:48
97 1.8 diesel estate LOUD clunking - Englishbullterrier
Thanks Peter, yes, all down really to a questionable battery and misplaced expectations/unknown/unexperienced performance in arctic conditions...

About this bad knocking. I'm, quite capable of changing the shocks, but there is also something else called either void or pivot bushes. Do you have any experience of these as to whether they could be the issue ?

Regards........ebt

Edited by Englishbullterrier on 06/02/2010 at 14:49

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Sat 6 Feb 2010 15:55
97 1.8 diesel estate LOUD clunking - Peter.N.
No, I'm afraid not, all my cars are hydropnumatic Citroens, a bit different to your average car. If it is a bush you should be able to move the suspension about by levering it, chances are that it will be shocks.
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Sat 6 Feb 2010 16:14
97 1.8 diesel estate LOUD clunking - Englishbullterrier
Thanks..........
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