I recently had my 1987 4000S 4cyl inspected and the brake pads replaced, and now am experiencing the following problem:

note: I'm taking it back to the shop eventually (long drive and i have to find someone to pick me up), but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas what this might be.

The car makes a continuous low-pitched metal-sounding scraping noise which becomes audible at 20+ mph. The sound is coming from near the front passenger-side wheel. It gets worse with increasing speed, but around 50 mph other road noise drowns it out. Additionally, despite my wheels being recently aligned the car pulls right - even on a flat road. If I let go of the wheel for more than 1-2 seconds my car would be off the road. I suspect these two problems are related, since drag on the right side of the car would cause it to pull right.

With the car in neutral and the front passenger-side jacked up, I tried rotating the wheel. It takes a fair amount of effort and does not continue spinning. However, this is a FWD and perhaps this is normal since it is attached to the driveshaft, etc. I pulled off the wheel and noticed that the brake pads were in contact with the rotor and I hear a scraping sound when I rotate the wheel, but it does not sound the same as when I'm driving 20+ mph -- then again, I can't spin the wheel that fast. Are the brake pads supposed to be slighly touching the rotor all the time? Might it be the wheel bearing?? Do I need some caliper slide lube? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

sounds more like one of the calipers has slipped, and is in constant contact with the rotor-hat. OR, wheel bearings. If you feel/HEARsomething grinding, odds are it's NOT good. Now, I'm no expert, but, IDT cars are supposed to make noises like that. Stop driving it before someting breaks OFF and you kill yourself, or, worse, ME or some other innocent (OK, I ain't exactly innocent, but you know where I'm coming from) driver.

 

Any reputable shop will lube caliper slides when doing a brake job, and yes the pads should be right up to the rotor even slightly touching it. Does sound like a brake related problem based on your symptoms you described. When you drive it pull over someplace and see if the pass front rotor is hotter than the others, if it is dragging you will feel the heat with your hand compared to the others

 

rear dust cover touching the rotor very common problem when doing breaks just bend the plate so its not touching the rotor

 

First of all, thank you for the quick replies. AWDaholic -- don't worry, I've been avoiding driving this car except for trying to figure out what's wrong with it (for exactly the same reasons you just said). I'll take a closer look at those dust covers and the rotor temps today and get back to you. Thanks!

 

I took a look at the brakes' dust covers; they were close but not touching anything. After that, went for a 15 min drive and checked the caliper temps. The left and right were exactly the same (it's about 30F here and they were slightly warm to the touch).

I have something to add to my description of the sound: it pulsates and has a quality to it similar to the sound tires make on an open-grate bridge. The sound pulsates faster/slower depending on vehicle speed. Perhaps my tire is damaged, but I doubt it. Just in case, I'm going to swap the front wheels and see if that changes anything. Also, while I had the car jacked up I noticed that I was able to slightly rotate the wheel left and right along the axis wheels are turned while steering (not vertically - which I believe would indicate a bad wheel bearing). My guess is worn tie-rod ends, but I don't think this is causing the problem since they were probably just as bad before taking my car to the shop.

 

be specific on your problem as you wont get the correct answer, is it just a scream from the rotors which would mean the dust shields are touching or is it deeper like bearing noise which increases with speed then its a bearing

 

I'm not sure what a dying bearing sounds like, but as I said earlier it is a "low-pitched metal-sounding scraping noise which becomes audible at 20+ mph". It sounds very much like normal road noise, except the frequency of the sound pulsates and has a quality similar to an open-grate bridge. Turning in either direction seems to have no effect.

 

Usually with a bearing the sound will change pitch when turning away from the bad bearing due to the fact that moreweight is transfered to that wheel. Have you looked for feathering in your tires? You say it sounds like road noise but pulsates, if the toe or balance is off or was off before the alignment you could have a feathering pattern on the tires causing noise like that, but you said you had it aligned and it still pulls. What type of alignment did they do? If the trust line is off and they do a front end alignment without adjusting or fixing waht is needed to get the thrust line pointed straight (the trust line is created by the rear wheels)the worn tie rod could cause the pull and cause a feathering affect in the tire or tires. It would be impossible to have correct alignment with a bad tie rod. From what you descride I would guess it is either a bad wheel bearing or bad tires causing the noise.

 

Bearing noises can be very decieving, check for bad bearings on all 4 tires not just where you think it may be coming from. I think you already know how but hold the tire at the 12 oclock and 6 oclock positions and apply pressure twards enginefrom top to bottom 3-4 times, there should be no play at all.