I have an 85 Z28 that has the 90-92 style 16 inch wheels installed. Whenever I make a hard turn left or right I hear a bad popping sound in the front end. I am assuming this is the tires making contact with something. How can I check to see what this is? Can I just jack up the front and turn the wheel lock to lock and feel around or does it have to be under load?..... Ideas and help greatly appreciated.

 

The 16's are front/rear specific - they are stamped on the back inside of the wheel - do you have the fronts on the fronmt and the rears on the rear?

 

I will need to look, as I am not sure... It is possible the wheels are reversed as it has not been changed since I got it from the previous owner.

 

if ur gonna check, it has to be under load
but yeah id check the stamps to start

 

Could also be the front sway bar. Mine were worn to dust and crumbled last summer. Investigated the noise and found that my sway bar pretty much didn't even have an endlink on the passenger side and was banging around and making the car handle weird haha.

Also, I'm sure someone will say this- inspect the area around your steering box for cracks and get a wonderbar as soon as you can if you don't already have one. If the frame behind the box is cracked you could have it welded by a frame shop. If not, get a wonderbar and don't worry about it.

 

tie rods?

 

my rear 16"s wouldn even fit past the tie rod on the front... i watched the guy at pepboys try to install my wheels backwards, i had to stop him to show him that the wheel was already binding on the tierod,


sounds just like bad control arm balljoints to me