Steering rack noise.
 

Just returned from a dicey roundtrip to the Jersey shore in the SC. High pitched squeaking upfront was making me very nervous that a wheel bearing was about to break loose again. But I eventually decided it had to be my poly bushings finally starting to squeak. Then I stopped at a rest area and noticed a horrible rubber-sounding groan when I moved the steering wheel at all. When I got out and shook each front wheel, noise appeared. Figuring it was a rubber noise and not metallic, I decided to continue on (I was 5 miles from Steve Timmins's house, but he wasn't picking up his phone). Anyway, got home last night after a good 500 miles and am wondering what part in the rack could have gone bad. Any ideers?

Start from the outside and go in. get the car up in the air 1- check to see that the tie rods are tight where they screw into the rack. 2- If running turbo tie rod kit, are the rack stop washers installed too? < seen a few cases where the rack stop washers (about 1/4 inch thick and supposed to be between the uni ball squared ends of the tie rod and the rack itself) were left out and the tie rods kept slamming into the end of the rack thereby displacing the end bushes. If all is well and tight (you will need to pull the rubber gaiters loose to inspect closely) then 3- look inside the smuggler's box in trunk and check out the coupler- have someone turn the wheels back and forth- should be a nice smooth action. 4- is the noise coming from the bearing inside the rubber housing (under the clamp)? 5- how about the steering column- is it noisy up there? plenty of info and pix on this board if you do a search too

Ok, I'll be getting to all that. I'm going to Germany on Thurs. for a week and then I'll track this down. FWIW, my tie rods, ball joints, t-bars, bushings, etc. are all new and have three track events on them already with no funny noises or failures.

I actually just had this happen to me as well - I'm going to get it up in the air in 2 weeks - so keep us posted.

must be contagious..I was told by a local p car guru that worn bushings casue the front of the torsion bar to rub on the body, causing a groan or rub squeak. The fix is new bushings and in some cases clearance the body slightly under the front torsion bar end cap.

I'm doing r&r on front bushings this weekend and will let you know if my front end groan/squeak goes away.

My bushings are new, as are t-bars. In fact, the rack is about the only thing I haven't refreshed on this car.