Buzzing/scraping noise that changes with revs.

[Del]

Started the Granada this morning, and it was absolutely fine at idle, until it started to move when there was a really horrible scraping noise. This continued up the road, increasing with revs. I stopped and had a quick look around, thinking I might have a puncture and it was the rim scraping the road, but it was 5.30 and pitch black, so not much luck (but definitely no flat tyre)...
I decided to carry on gingerly, as the roads were quiet and the car was driving absolutely fine. As I carried on, I thought I'd try and analyse it a bit more.

So:
The noise appears to be coming from around the offside front wheel.
It increases as revs increase. As revs decrease (e.g. under braking), it disappears. Also, with cruise control on, it decreases when going downhill as revs drop and increases going uphill as revs rise again.
If the car is in Neutral and I increase the revs, there is no noise.
With the car at a steady speed on a level road, it *almost* disappears, where it sounds more like a buzzing.
It gets slightly worse when turning (either direction).

I thought maybe a brake dust shield might be catching, but I would expect that to change with road speed, not revs. The car is driving normally, and will happily cruise at 70mph.
It was serviced on Wednesday morning, and they did have the wheels off to check the brakes but I'd done sixty miles between then and this morning with no problem, including driving home from work yesterday, and it hadn't moved between parking yesterday afternoon and this morning.
The only thing I can think of that's different is that I had the bonnet up yesterday changing a headlight bulb, and I wondered if I'd dislodged something that rattling around somewhere, but I can't think what.
I'll try and get under the bonnet shortly but I'm at work and it might not be possible. Just hoping for some educated guesses that I can check when I finish and before I set off home!

[skylinedave]

C.v Joint going ? Wheel bearing going ? I have had to deal with both recently and they would sometimes quiet down to almost nothing when i was going around a left turn etc .


Cambelt tensioner as well i have had one on a golf that would shriek intermittantly then go quiet - it skipped a few teeth in the end and cost £££££££

[Del]

Thanks, Dave.
It's RWD so I don't have CV joints at the front, as far as I know. It doesn't sound wheel bearing-y, but if it were, I would have expected to have heard it before this morning, this literally occurred overnight.
Tensioner is a possibility though and one I'll look into.

Managed to get a quick look in daylight, and there's nothing obviously amiss under the bonnet. Wasn't going to lie on the floor in my work clothes, so can't say if there's anything around the wheel yet.
I did notice that the rear of the front bumper has come loose, where it meets the wheel arch, and I wondered if that was scraping (there is some paint lost there), so I'll stick some tape over that and see if that cures it to start with.

[skylinedave]

Silly me of course no cv's ! Good luck .

[Del]

Well, on the drive home it felt completely different, with the noise seeming to come from a different location, less consistently, quieter at some points and louder than others.
The only thing that seemed definite was that it got worse going over speed bumps, which pointed to a suspension issue.
Luckily, my neighbourhood garage was open when I went past, so I got them to have a quick look, and it's my nearside lower wishbone/track control arm. And the nearside front tyre was down to the cord and split on the on the inside.
So, a quick wheel change to put the spare on, and booked in to get the arms changed.