C55 W203 Wagon - Rear end tapping

[brucemillar]

Friends

Yes it's a day with a 'Y' in it. How do we know this? Simple!! Something else has fallen off my beloved C55 Wagon.

Went to play golf yesterday and decided to take the C55. Big mistake..

When I accelerate or when the car is placed under any load (slight throttle going uphill) I have a loud wheel speed tapping coming from the rear end. Difficult to pin point, when I am in the drivers seat, but it sounds like the rear passenger wheel/corner and is very definitely related to wheel speed/revolutions. Almost like a wheel stud hitting the handbrake shoes - sort of noise (how do I know this sound?). Driving along high sided country lanes it sounds like skeleton, knocking one out in a dustbin and attracts lots of funny looks from passers by.

A quick visual inspection (I looked at the wheel whilst praying on all fours, to my wallet) reveals nothing hanging down/off. I guess next step is to get the rear wheel off and have a closer look?

Can the rear wheel be removed, using a 25 liter can of petrol and a box of matches?

Any clues for any known, metallic tapping rear passenger side wheel speed noises?

 

[grober]

MY guess - something up with the rear handbrake shoes/adjuster/ return springs inside that little handbrake drum. Sometimes if the car hasn't been used a lot the brake shoes can seize or "weld" themselves to the drum- when forced to break free by the cars forward motion something has to give= break. It might be useful to listen to the sound in reverse as this might give a further sense of what is going on before dismantling??

 

[Codger49]

+1 for it likely to be a handbrake issue.

My first check would be a shoe retaining spring, either snapping or pulling itself through a perishing backplate. Just had this on my son's CLK. Have got some time by rotating the retaining spring 180 degrees to secure against a more sound part of the backplate.

There's a couple of forum threads on this, I quite like the one where the chap cut the old and new backplates in half to avoid the usual wheel bearing replacement required when taking the wheel carrier off the drive shaft.

I had this on my E46 but was able to fix it by using a washer between the pin retaining lugs and the backplate.