Steering Rack knock
 

Hi I have been trying to diagnose a rattle comming from the passenger side front wheel of my 2006-2007 Civic EX Sedan for a while. It happens while going over bumps, and I mean bumps where the street is kind of cracked. The noise is not reproducible while going on an uneven surface, only when the wheel hits a crack.
So far what I have done is:
- Retightened the 6 power steering rack bolts to the specified torque
- Changed the passenger side inner rod
- Changed the passenger side Sway bar link
- Adjusted the Steering Rack Guide

After doing all of these things got better but If I move the wheel left to right lots of times with the car on jackstands I can feel a knock and some play on it. It is really looking like its coming from inside the rack so I don’t know what I should replace in there.

The car has almost 60k miles, my previous 99 EX had over 130k miles and after doing the steering rack adjustment a very similar noise (if not the same) went away.

Any ideas on how should I fix this noise?

Re: Steering Rack knock
 

I suspect a shock bearing. It could be a ball joint maybe, but not likely. Shocks typically make more of a rattling sound. Ball joints would be more of a clicking.

Re: Steering Rack knock
 

This is gonna sound screwy.....

There's a bulletin for the motor mount making a rattle noise....read this and see if the descriptions might match your driving conditions

PDF LINK