brief cv or bearing noise

My 98 escort wagon has been driven even less than usual during the coronavirus lockdown. During a slow speed turn after driving about a block there is a sound from the front that sounds like the CV joint, that is it seems to me to be for only a part of the rotation of the wheel. A few more blocks and the noise is gone before the next turn. (Also only seems to happen if the 1st turn is a left turn.)

There are only 150,000 miles on the car and a manual transmission.

Can old cars that are sitting around develop dry patches in bearings that sort of fix themselves as motion redistributes the grease? Either way I suppose one more budget item for me in these weird times would be a new axle?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

J. Miller

No I wouldn't call it a clicking or even a clunk like I remember universal joint made.

Then is it squeaking? It could be the brake pads dragging on the rotor ever so slightly. Try stepping very lightly on the brakes when the car is making the sound, to see if it goes away.

Over the past few days the noise has changed a bit. It sounds less like a scraping and more like a pop. It seems unrelated to braking and still comes only with some acceleration into left turn and still goes away in less than a mile. I'm expecting this will be clearly a CV problem after a while.

More later. How much later? I'm not sure but we have record cold forecast for SE Michigan for the next few days and there are snow flakes outside (which is my workspace.)

Thanks for all your input.

J. Miller

First off, wheel bearing issues here are relatively rare. CV joint issues are common. That and your symptoms suggest a CV joint. You can drive like that for years if you don't mind tempting fate.

I want to thank you and the others for your help in organizing my thoughts. It took me a while to figure this out. One problem was that the noise seemed on the left during accelerating in a left turn. Backing up a little, during the winter both ends of the front sway bar broke off leaving the aftermarket links intact. I had left that alone until I had time to replace the sway bar. When I looked under the car I did not see any problems. But I did that with the wheels off the ground. When I finally looked at the left front wheel with weight on the wheel the end of the sway bar link was close enough to the axle boot that the crimp on the boot clamp could rub against the end of the link for one part of the axle revolution. The links were quite firmly rusted but were removed using about 1 1/2 saw blades per link. The noise is gone. The lower mounting point on the lower control arm is quite rusted and cracked. Today 1aauto had a set of lower control arms (with ball joints) on sale and so maybe soon I will have everything fixed.
JM

Great to hear of your progress.
With all that talk of rust, what part of the country do you live in?

Lathrup Village, about 20 miles northwest of the salt mines under Detroit.

Ha! That will do it. you must be fairly close to the (closed) border.

I was very happy to move to the west coast and enjoy working on cars that weren't rusted out badly. I used to think the repair manuals were a bit of a joke when they showed removing a rear wheel and a couple small screws, then removing the brake drum by hand.
But out here, you can often do that!

The first 2 weeks of July were spent installing the new lower control arms and
the sway bar I had found on eBay. Rust was a major headache while removing the front sub frame. The car is riding nicely now but I don't know for how long. Two of the six attachment points for that sub frame had major rust issues. I'm thinking along the lines of Oliver Wendell Holmes, The One Hoss Shay. After putting in all the finest parts the whole thing eventually just crumbled into a pile of dust (rust in my case.)