For some time now I've had an annoying 'clonk' on the offside front of this car. It didn't seem too serious and you wouldn't notice it on motorways or 'smooth' roads but you definitely noticed it on pot holed and bumpy roads. (Which there are a lot of now!)
My line of thinking was that it was the bottom ball joint on the driver's side, so seeing as I was home from work sharpish today, I set about removing the bottom suspension arm so that I could get to the ball joint and replace it. (These have to be pressed in and out)
With the car up on axle stands I removed the bolt that connects the bottom arm to the drag strut, and then disconnected the anti-roll bar. That should have let me lower the suspension arm down so that I could lift the hub off of the ball joint, but it wasn't for some reason. So, I removed the main bolt holding the suspension arm and to my surprise the whole lot, i.e. hub, brake disc, calliper and suspension leg came crashing downwards and onto the garage floor! Now this shouldn't be possible because the suspension leg would normally be held up by the three bolts that would secure the front spring mount to the inner wing, and this would secure the shock absorber insert to the suspension leg.
For some reason, the shock absorber insert had come undone and completely detached itself from the suspension leg. (That would explain the clonking then!)
Further investigation revealed that the thread on the suspension leg that the insert cap screws into was severely worn. This would have caused the cap to come loose and eventually undo itself.
So, until I can get another suspension leg, there wasn't really much I could do, so I left the hub, disc, and calliper etc. supported and called it a day. At least I definitely know what was causing the clonking now.
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