The infamous nearside knock?

[turkie172]

Broken spring at base very hard to see when fitted into the cup most likely the source of the knock on speed ramps on the down face and the low speed rattle must have been the top mount now when I say rattle its like metal bar rolling around in the glove box or as the fault actually is a metal cup like a shallow bell knocking inside a metal ring.

 

[tchalikias]

Bringing this thread back from the dead since even after 12 years, the mysterious knock from the front (both left and right side, mostly left) has not been solved.

Things replaced so far with no success: front shocks, steering rack, track rod ends, anti-roll bar drop links, top mounts, lower ball joints on carrier hubs.

You can feel the knock on the footwell, sometimes. It feels and sounds elastic - sometimes even the weight shift of the car in a bend will produce it (for example, steering hard to the right, the weight shifts left, a clunk is heard and felt). Sometimes the smallest of anomalies will produce the clunk while a regular sized pothole will not.

But what blows my mind is this: I replaced the front top mounts recently, and this, apart from noticeably improving steering feel, eliminated ALL clunks/front system noises.. for like a week.

For an entire week, after living with the clunking for a decade, I thought I'd found the culprit (even though I'd replaced the top mounts once again, before)... but then, the clunking has come back, in full force.

I am, therefore, led to believe that something which gets dismantled when replacing the top mounts, may be the culprit. So my question is.. what is usually removed to replace the top mounts on a Clio 200?