To preface, I had new tires put on about 4 months ago. when they were installed the tire guys told me my front bearings were crap (which they were) so i replaced them.

Since then I've driven maybe 300 miles but recently I've been getting a nice clunk from the front driver's side. It was occurring only while turning, but now it's begun happening while braking. I went ahead and did a hard full stop while driving around this afternoon to see if brake pressure was affecting it.

Now it's clunking permanently at low speeds regardless of turning or not. It is wheel speed related and I'm going to guess that it's one clunk per revolution. when you lift the car and rotate the wheel, no noise other than the brake pads scraping the discs lightly.

Is it possible that when I reassembled the hubs with the new bearings that I damaged one, maybe cracking a race and now the clunk I'm hearing/feeling is a ball in the bearing passing over the crack?

I'm pretty much stumped on this one. I checked the steering rack tie rods and they're fine and there is nothing on the brake discs that would be hitting the pads as it rolled by so I've got nothing.

 

a bent rim, maybe your struts are done, broken spring, strut mounts

 

sway bar bushings
hub not tight enough and loose bearing (check for wheel play, and I hate to say this but you probably just could have tightened the hubs to begin with)
lower ball joint

basically just jack and support the car very well and go to town with your hands and a pry bar and see what moves. apply pressure to everything in every direction until you find what moves.

 

That's the big problem. I've gone over everything pushing and prodding and that's why I've come here.

the sway bar bushings seem fine, when I put it up on the stands and then took the preload off the strut spring it was smooth and rotated nicely on its *****.

my struts are probably gone, but I looked at the top mounts and they seemed ok.

lower ball joint is where exactly? it's been ages since I've spent a lot of time under this thing.

 

Every time I've done wheel bearings, I've always re-torqued the nut between 2 & 400 miles... I would start there.

 

struts will make a clunking noise if it has lost the fluid or gas.

 

don't the struts have to be compressing in order for them to make noise though? This noise happens on completely smooth pavement.

I'll take a look at the bearing nut even though i didn't see any play. then again, this calipers are on.

 

have you checked your end links? If it was only around turns, I would say your steering rack could be the culprit (either loose or defective), but You say it also hapens on braking, which makes this a really odd case....

 

Lower ball joint is under your hub assembly and connects to your A arm with two bolts and then the ball joint bolt goes up and through the bottom connection to the hub and gets secured by a nut on top as well as the hub has another bolt to the outside of where the bolt goes through to grab onto the bolt even more. Its not something that will cause an in and out play when you lift that side of the car up but rather an up and down motion as well as a little in and out... well like a worn ball joint that goes in all directions. I've replaced every one on my 2nd gens cause they do wear out and would most often give me a wobble above 70 in some of my cars and the one in my 10th would wobble at around 90+ and when I would turn like yours does.

Thats my guess. Only like 25 bucks for an OEM one or an aftermarket one with warrantee.

 

Rather than tightening the hub over and over after driving you can snug it up, spin the hub, snug it up, repeat until moderate-light torque does not move the hub nut.

Sounds like you need a haynes manual or FSM.

Had bad experiences with aftermarket ball joints for this car. A warranty is little consolation to doing the work all over again IMO.

 

S4 yes, S5, no.
Unfortunately the OP has an S5 and they have a lower ball joint that is pressed into the a-arm and isn't replaceable.
Mazda expects that the S5 owner will replace the entire a-arm although it seems more logical to procure a set of S4 arms- which are direct replacements.

 

Only thing I can say because it happened to me make sure your ball joint is tight. I went drunk drifting cause my ex girlfriend pissed me off. So long story short had to replace pass side ball joint and shock from being blinded by shift light. replaced parts and kept getting clunk in the front and unstable turning in mid-drifts, spinning out due to tada- Lower ball joint was not tight at least the bolt to hold it in not the 2 lower bolts but thats on S4. on an S5 you have to replace whole a arms so that is more than likely your problem and check your bushings also they have been know to cause noises to.

 

An easy way to check your ball joints is to jack up the car and place one hand on the top of the wheel and one hand on the bottom and wiggle it. If there is any play, your joint is either going out or gone.

 

Like everyone else say's lower ball joint had to replace both mine a while back would vibrate threw the steering wheels threw turns.

 

Jack up your car and check for wheel play. Another thing you could do is swap your tires around, and see if the noise moves. When you have the car lifted turn the wheels, and check all suspension for any type of play. Loose bolts, Worn Bushings.

 

there is no wheel play in either axis.

i had a FSM, but it's either currently boxed somewhere unknown, or gone. still have my 323 and mx-6 books though :|