My FB has been driving pretty good other than a little vacuum leak I hadn’t figured out yet, but all of the sudden on my way home the other day it started clunking really bad every time I would coast in neutral. Not at all when in gear.
The driveshaft has a little play in the u joint by the transmission but not enough to make this noise. I think the diff might be toast, but it’s kind of weird that it started really bad all of the sudden. Also noticed a drip of oil on the transmission and diff. (I’m probably screwed lol)
If anyone has experienced this before or can give me any kind of advice I would appreciate it. I was planning on a rear end swap eventually but it may be sooner rather than later. Hopefully not a transmission problem. It does shift smoothly and goes in gear easy. Definitely sounds like it’s coming from the rear though. (Side carrier might be toast?) What do you guys think?
The drip on the transmission

 

What happened to your speed-o cable? Also, looking at that speed-o collar, that is an automatic speed-o cable. They are longer then the manual trans ones.

 

funny you ask that, the previous owner happened. I got this car for dirt cheap so I guess you get what you pay for.

 

Without the cable, you can get a leak. I see fluid dripping. Could be the trans is low on fluid. If your car is an automatic, that speed-o cable is really hard to find if not impossible. I might have one, I'd have to look.

 

It’s a 5 speed, so I could probably just buy a manual speed-o cable from mazdatrix in that case. Maybe that’ll fix the leak.

 

The automatic speedo cable is specific to the auto?

Crap. I thought I'd collected everything I needed to convert my '81 to automatic

 

I should have prefaced this that the 1984/1985 are different. The 1979-1983 are all the same.

 

Sweet! Now all that is holding me back is inertia!