Metal tapping sound after brand new front suspension.
 

I replaced the control arms, sway bar links, inner tie rods, outer tie rods on my 04 civic with 215k miles on it. Prior to it there was no audible issue. The reason why I did this was I noticed both ball joints were dry and cracked. Also the tie rod ends had a lot of play in them, as well as the sway bar links.

It basically sounds like someone lightly tapping a wrench on hollow metal when I start accelerating or come to a halt. Other than that, when i'm coasting at 20-40+ there's no sound. Additionally, it makes the sound evenly on both front sides when jacking up the car from the subframe.

I do not recall if it made the noise before an alignment, as it has been a very long day for me. I did retorque one side's tie rod end which the alignment shop had way out of spec, but still no solution. While I was jacking up the car I was grabbing different parts of both tie rod ends, and inner tie rod however I cannot specifically pin point the exact spot the sound vibrations are coming from. Feels like the lock nut, but also the inner tie rod, and then I can barely tell.

I plan on retorquing everything tomorrow. I used proper torque specs for everything. Please give your opinion as I have been troubleshooting this for 8+ hours and had the car jacked up 3 times.

I've done this job 3-4 times in the past with the same brand suspension parts.

Could it be that the new tie rod ends and inner tie rod as so stiff and require a break-in period? I read online that after driving 20 miles, one user mentioned the sound went away entirely.

Re: Metal tapping sound after brand new front suspension.
 

when you disassemble an old suspension, other parts that were OK might not be OK after.
could be the top hats. Could.
did you remove the axles? could be the CV joint got something out of place during the job

Re: Metal tapping sound after brand new front suspension.
 

Something isn't tightened properly, I once forgot to tighten the front engine mount fully, I was only out by half a turn but it made a ton of noise

Re: Metal tapping sound after brand new front suspension.
 

Update: The sound went away completely on it's own. My best guess is the inner and outer tie rods were super stiff from the factory, and upon normal operation they self lubricated and the noise went away.

Re: Metal tapping sound after brand new front suspension.
 

Could you elaborate on this? I just made a new thread about weird noises happening after I installed new coilovers. When I bought the 2002 Civic, it had old/damaged coilovers and was out of alignment, but no noise or grinding. Now it has new coilovers and is aligned, but now I'm hearing grinding and whining noise. Is there a "settling" period when a new suspension is installed?

Re: Metal tapping sound after brand new front suspension.
 

as mentioned in your thread, take back to whoever did the job