You have been busy, Keep up the good work:cool:

Hopefully you find where the knocking noise is coming from soon.
Could it be a sub frame bush that is knocking? Just a guess.

Stay positive - your making good progress :)

Re the knocking, have you considered taking the car to an MoT test station? My Tester uses ramps with a 'jiggler' for testing - the car is raised on the ramps, then the 'jiggler' bounces the car all over the place so that the bushes are checked. I'd imagine that the source of the noise would be found in a couple of minutes on one of those, so it would be worth the likely 30 mins labour charge - just a thought.

Good luck!

Been toying with the idea, my local is a classic car man (old open wheel Bugatti stuff mostly) who I've known for years. Loves old cars, hates modern ones, and is very good at 'suggesting' I repair something before next year, knowing it will always be done in a few weeks time.

I'll have a bit more fiddling, simply because I enjoy doing it, before going that route perhaps.

Driving home last night the knocking was notably worse, to the point where the car was put on the drive and I'm back in the old faithful 240 (which needs a PAS pump, but ho hum, at least nothing is in danger of falling off!).

Grabbed an hour this morning and whipped the NSF strut off, put my big boy pants on and wound up the spring compressor. I had to move it a coil after the pic to get it off the mount. I think fair to say the top spring mount is shot, new genuine one coming Friday. The bearing looked and felt OK so will go back in.

Quite a difference between the original spring top and the updated version, much more rubber bulk in the new one. Whilst the strut was off I cleaned off all the surface rust, gave it some Bilt Hamber treatment and a coat of paint.
All bolted back in this morning and we are rattle free at last. A decent 30 mile run out down the motorway and silent the whole way, so fingers crossed that's it done.
No more oil up the back of the engine either, so that was the turbo return seal into the sump.
Few bits to tidy on the bodywork, have a replacement N/S mirror on route, the current has had a decent wallop prior to my ownership and it's not fixable. Replacement is the wrong colour so looks like I'm painting again.

Well now the nearside is so quiet, I can here the offside! Window down in the sunshine and there is a bit of a suspension knock/rattle on rough surfaces and manholes on the NSF. Based on the state of the one I've changed, it's probably worth doing the same. I guess at least I'll have 2 nice clean and painted struts...

Little bits getting done, sorted the broken drivers side wing mirror today and started changing the gearbox oil. Dropped 3 litres out, not too bad but very dark brown. Fresh 3 litres in, will run for a few hundred miles and repeat until I go through the 20 litre barrel.
Rather annoyingly what looked to be not too bad a crease on the passenger door is actually a bit worse, it's right on the strong point and has pinched the window channel, at least I know why the window won't go down now. Currently thinking of replacing the door along with the rear one which also has damage in an awkward place. No chance of matching the colour but I'm quite happy to paint the replacements.
All minor niggles really, it's a cracking motor to drive and now I'm comfortable with the mechanicals I'm starting to enjoy it, cosmetics will get done in due course.

I'm still hunting a minor coolant leak. Not enough to be a drip, but enough to see the level in the coolant tank drop over the course of a hundred miles. Nothing obvious engine on or off, no pressure build up in the coolant reservoir but I have replaced the cap as the old one had the tiniest crack in it. Oil is clean, gearbox oil is clean.
Compression test this morning gave a solid 13 bar on all 5 cylinders.
I have a pot of UV dye which I think I'll add and see if that gives me some pointers.

I went over the engine bay last week, top to bottom, hot and cold, running and not, and cold not find a leak. This led to the compression test as which has proven clear. So I added the UV dye today and went of for a 30 mile jaunt to get it around the system.
Back home, UV torch out and found the leak very quickly on the turbo coolant feed line at the banjo connection to the turbo. Not the clearest of pictures but you can clearly see the UV dye.
I have a few spare crush washers from when I did the turbo oil return which needed the coolant return removing so that's one for the list.
Also sucked 200mil of fluid from the PAS reservoir, looks decidedly like coffee so replaced with Dexron 3 ATF and will, in a similar vein to the gearbox, replace a bit each few hundred miles until it looks better.

And so the fun continues. I do enjoy working on all the cars, but sometimes a job is such pig that I wonder why I started it....

Decided to change the crush washers on the turbo coolant line, so big metal turbo pipe removed, 17mm spanner at the ready.

No chance. flexi 17mm ratchet spanner won't fit as it fouls the turbo body. Offset 17mm ratchet spanner, same. No space to get a handle on a 17mm socket. Eventually, a pair of different 17mm ring spanners with slightly different tooth offsets allowed me to undo the banjo bolt 1/100th of a turn at a time. Did a bit from underneath, a bit from on top.

Needed to remove part of the heat shield to get my hand in, parted with a bit of blood and skin on this job, but finally new washers in place and nipped up. There is also a very slight leak on the joint between pipe and banjo, so I'm going on the hunt for a new one of them, but suspect they are NLA...

Did another 3 litre gearbox oil drop whilst I was out there, the old was less dark and actually had a hint of red to it, so getting there.

Test run afterwards showed no issues, happy days. Little bit more to do then on to the cosmetics as it's a bit scruffy in places.