The wheel bearing needed doing but the rumble was still evident. Pretty sure the culprit is the driver side shock. So badly rusted that the spring is forcing the bottom of the assembly downwards. With enough weight in the car the tyre is touching the shock on cornering. New shocks ordered on Tuesday night from MAPCO, £110 ish delivered, arrived this morning and are now on the car. Will test drive tomorrow and report back.
Anyone replacing the front shock absorbers will find it reasonably straight forward. I suppose I should have tried to produce a maintenance guide with pictures, sorry. Oh, and you must do both at the same time:
I removed the discs for better access to the assembly. You will need spring compressors which are cheap online. Access to the lower drop link bolt is a bit of a pain at the bottom as the light level sensor assembly is in the way, but doable. Be aware that there is usually a spanner accepting area on the inside of the link to stop the ball joint from spinning as you undo it. Mine was 17mm. Release the clip holding the brake pipe to the shock. Pull away the ABS sensor wire from the shock.
Undo the two big bolts at the bottom 18mm. Leave one bolt in place. Unbolt the top nut 24mm using a spanner whilst holding the top of the damper 10 or 11mm. Remove the loose bolt and pull the hub away. The shock can now be dropped out. Put the old shock on the bench and remove the spring. Carefully does it, there is a lot of tension there if they fly off! Put nuts, washers and other parts you need to reuse in order as they come off so you know how they go back.
Reassembly is the reverse. Not sure of the correct torques. I put 65NM on drop links and 90Nm plus 60 degrees on the big bottom bolts. The top bolts I just tightened up tight as I could with a ring spanner. Only problem I had, there are always a few aren't there
, was getting the brake hose support back onto the shock. Had to open up the hole a bit with my dremel.