[daytonboi]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but here it goes. For about the past two or three months my van has been making a very loud and startling scraping sound. It's coming from the front end on the passenger side and its pretty hit or miss when it does it. When it does happen its normally when I'm backing up and turning. There has been one occasion when it happened I was going forward getting ready to turn into my driveway. I sounds like something digging into the concrete. I've stopped the van dead in its tracks and got out and looked but there is never anything hanging from anywhere on the van that can give me a clue as to what it is. I had the van in the shop for some very badly squealing brakes, that's another question for the other section though, and when the gentleman backed it up to put it in the stall he heard it and they looked and could not find anything wrong. I was wondering if anyone has an idea because i would like to catch before it gets out of hand and becomes too expensive to fix.

BTW the van is a 1998 Chevy Astro AWD.

 

[mattsrevenge]

quick q, when backing up, are the wheels turned? (ie, steer wheel turned to lock)

there are metal stoppers on the lower control arms (i believe- or the frame) that the hub stops into, if you have the wheels turned and go over any uneven surface, this can make a very loud grinding sound. my 98 crown vic does the same. paint the stopper with axle grease (i use anti-sez) and it will quiet it up.

you can test this by turning the wheels to lock on either side, drive over anything (fwd or reverse) uneven and see what noise it makes.

 

[Jasen]

Another thing, mine did something like this. It was a lose dust skirt in the wheel well. Was an easy fix.

 

[fede]

also since your down there check your sway bar and linkage to see if there cracked.

 

[astro355]

Another thing, mine did something like this. It was a lose dust skirt in the wheel well. Was an easy fix.

Yeah, I hate that one. Its makes a very unexpected noise.