Granching noise pulling away hard from stationary

R

Rovertron

Member
This is something really bothering me.

Under normal driving, not a peep from the n/s front.

However, from stationary under 'enthuastic lift off' conditions and there is a 'GRRRR-rrrrrr' that is very loud vibrating sound coming from the front n/s that gets quieter and then disappears once doing about 20mph.

It almost definitely happens with turning to the left from stationary

I'm stumped, suspension matters are my weak point on a P6, so complicated.

I'm not sure if it's related but the car seems to pull to the left more and more over the last 1000 miles.

Can anyone help?
 
I used to get a noise like that in a V8 auto. In the end I put it down to a broken engine mount that I only dicovered when I broke the car.
 
My 2000 auto used to make noises just like that. It was because when the previous owner replaced the engine he didn't bolt the damn thing back in!! The bolts that hold the engine in place were held in by gravity and allowed the engine to shift with the torque of moving off. So I agree with BBLongman to check the engine mounts before the whole donk ends up on the deck!
One last thought, make sure that your shock absorber on the NS is still firmly in place. If the bushes are perished it will alllow the shock to move, and may have some metal to metal contact.
Cheers
Guy :)
 
Eeek!!!

An engine mount problem does not sound good, I know the previous owner did a top end rebuild as part of his work on the car.

It was definitely an engine out job so I'll be looking at the mounts immediately.

Funny you should say about the shocks, I had the fronts replaced, the noise only coming a while after they were fitted, it could be a poor fit. The bushes should be fine, replaced with polys just prior to buying the car.

Well, that's two things to look at, many thanks. Hopefully a torque wrench and finding the appropriate bolt is all that is required.

That's suddenly No.1 job on the list then.
 
Rovertron,

Is your car a V8? I had this problem and looked all over at suspension, transmission, and eventually thought it to be the first sign of a tired camshaft. But no - it turned out to be the exhaust header pipe from the LH manifold sliding slightly inside the other one where they join. (most aftermarket 3500S exhaust systems have an interference join just ahead of the 'wishbone' - held by a bolted U-clamp.) The clamp had come loose and the inner pipe was moving inside the outer, particularly when pulling away from rest - this caused a metallic grating noise which sounded rather nasty but was simple to cure. Hope this turns out to be your problem too!
 
Just to tidy this one up, it's a engine mount. It went away for a while and now it's back.

How can I tell? Well, the engine is slightly lob sided in the bay! It looks as if it is the rear nearside which marries up perfectly where it was coming from.

Problem is, I'm five miles from home as I've used it today in the nice weather.

B*gger. I've been driving it today so I'll be limping it slowly home, my logic is I've done 400+ miles with this problem so 5 more won't hurt.
 
Just an update.

The problem turned out to be two split engine mount bushes on the front. The mounts were correctly torqued but the bushes did not provided adequate shocking under load hence the rumbling. It only manifested itself visibly when one bush worked free and 'lop-sided' the engine.

All credit to Brian Terry at Airways Garage, Sipson. He diagosed it quickly. His lads managed to slide in new ones without removing the engine saving a small fortune in labour costs. I asked Brian to take it out (in his capacity as a former P6 test driver for Rover) for his assessment and he gave me one simple instruction.

"Give it a good drive, it's fine".

With a new peace of mind, I did and it really is a different car now. Amazing how two bits of rubber can affect the drive and ride, call it a second honeymoon.
 
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