Front knocking noise - coffin arm ball joints?

If I jack the front of the car up, wrap my arms round a front wheel and pull the top of it back and forth towards me there's a slight knocking.... is this most likely play in the ball joint of the front coffin arms? or should I be thinking something else? There's an increasing knocking felt from the front at low speed. Top mounts were fairly recently changed. Same for droplinks. Pretty much all the other suspension arms were polybushed and changed some time ago..... Am I also imagining things that someone released coffin arms with serviceable/replaceable ball joints?

Could you get a mate to rock the wheel while you feel all the joints?

I think I'm going to have to do this or be more thorough prying on each arm - some forum threads suggest that this type of knocking comes from wear on the inner mounting point of the "tuning fork/wishbone" track control arm - which is preferable as ultimately considerably cheaper/easier to deal with

Mine failed MoT for this last year - I hadn't noticed but once the coffin arm was off, there was definite play. It could also be top mount gone if you can make it clunk on lock to lock steering.

Wiggle the wheel top and bottom and play can be the shock .. won't cause a noise though .. Bottom coffin arm ball joint .. won't normally cause a noise but is possible .. you would jack it up and use a lever bar to see if there is actual play in the ball joint. Top strut mount .. if replaced then it's not that . When driving then it depends on the type of noise .. a sound clip would help but a common one is the diagonal arms .. on a bump you get a bonk .. then bonk bonk .... bonk bonk bonk .. Anti Roll bar bushes can give a louder but the same type of noise .. these are both pothole related .. you need a bump in the road to cause the noise .. this i think is not your case ? Look at the shock in the middle when you check this free play .. does it move ? Can you describe the noise when you drive the car please if no sound clip is possible . Play side to side is several other things .

Tends to be lower speed i.e. under 30 and slightly uneven surfaces, rather than potholes.... bonk... bonk bonk..... bonk... bonk bonk bonk... Would be a pretty good description. No side to side play at all and movement and noise is very slight, but I'm becoming a bit hyper attuned to it(!) Definitely feels like is narrowed down to the 'tuning fork' arm (now that I've seen a video about the nature of that inner bush) or movement in the shock (which I'll have to have a look at as deMort suggests)

Had this on mine was play in the shock push the bump stop dirt cover up and put your finger on where the chromed shock shaft disappears into the strut. Now get someone else to rock the wheel, you'll feel the play. PM me if you need a good low miles front shock I have both early (3.4) and later 3.6 in my spares cache I'm selling off Also if it only happens when the car is warm it might be inner track rods.

The cars on Ohlins, so I'm rather hoping its not the shocks

Now I wonder if I'm losing my mind slightly... - the deflection I'm getting seems to be just in tyre The car still has its winters on (Pirelli sotto zero 3s - all the exact Porsche spec sizes on the right Porsche wheels) - could it be an issue with the bead/rim?! Is that possible? Planning on swapping onto the summers next weekend... maybe that's the check and maybe I bring that forward... :dont know:

I had exactly this kind of knocking, plus several others. After replacing top mounts and anti roll bar bushes (both of which cured knocks) I was left with what you described and it was a tuning fork replacement that cured it.

Your description is a diagonal arm noise .. you won't feel any play in these as they are an annoyance and not a problem . diagonal arm / tuning fork .. which ever you want to call them would seem to be the issue . I will add that if original then around 50K miles they start to knock . Best guess anyways .