Ever since I've had this car, I've had a problem with driveline slack. The front diff mount was broken so I swapped in a solid one. The trans mounts were shot, so I swapped in new OEM ones. I also swapped my old motor mounts for solid ones while the engine was out last summer.

So after all that, I assumed that the U-Joints were on their way out because I still had a decent amount of slack. I took the driveshaft out today and it turns out that the U-Joints are in almost excellent condition. There was very very very little play in the front one. Maybe 0.5 degrees or so and the rear was fine.

But while I was taking the driveshaft out, I noticed that there was maybe 6-8 degrees of play in the diff. It's the stock NA, non-LSD. How many degrees of play is "in spec"?

The slack is most noticible(sp?) when you wind out 1st and push in the clutch. There seems to be 2 whirring noises that come as soon as the clutch goes in. Like a quick "whirrwhirr". As best as I can tell with the car being loud as hell, it is coming from the shifter area, what I thought to be a bad front U-Joint.

Any thoughts?

 

Whirring noise from the shifter area = transmission.

Common for the input and/or cluster shaft bearings to wear out, causing the noise. Sometimes synthetic transmission oil helps, sometimes not. In my case I had a noisy transmission for YEARS and put over 150K on the car until I finally killed the transmission due to lack of oil (snapped input shaft because the rear seal let go and dumped the oil onto the highway).

As for the diff, I don't know what the exact spec is. Probably in the factory service manual (FAQ).

 

Hmm... maybe this has something to do with it:





I took off the exaust heat shield to get the driveshaft back in, and noticed the whole area was covered in relatively young looking tranny fluid. I assume that I caught my rear tranny seal on its way out, but it almost seems that the fluid is coming from the shifter area above the tailshaft. I know that the fluid probably hit the front U-Joint and flung fluid around everywhere though, so it's hard to tell.

 

Replace the seal, fill the transmission with oil and then see if the noise goes away. But likely the damage to the transmission is already done and you'll be stuck with the noise unless you get it rebuilt. Same thing happened to me.

 

But would that cause driveline slack?

 

No. The slack is probably a worn out differential.

 

Wonderful. Bad trans and a bad diff.

Looks like I'll be doing a TII driveline swap a little bit sonner than I had planned.

Thanks for the help.

 

What is this slack in the diff you speak of? Is it like the slack in the rotation of the driveshaft before it engages the half shafts? Or does the diff actually move around and have slack in it?

 

I'm talking about the rotation of the diveshaft before it "hooks up" and actually starts to turn the wheels. The diff is solidly mounted and is not moving what-so-ever. CV joints are also good.

I haven't been under the car for a couple days, but I will sometime tomorrow.I'll get a degree of play measurement for the diff and post it up againt factory specs, (which I still haven't bothered to look for).

 

Backlash should be minimal, probably around .004". Rear needs to come apart as R&P need to be reset, unless worn, then replaced.

 

the leak could be coming from the shifter itself. i just pulled my shifter out the outher day and found that the small rubber boot that mounts on the retainer ring was torn, allowing gear oil to rise up out by the shifter.