I've been getting tons of vibration on the highway and from what I gather on the forums it looks like worn u-joints? Whenever I hit the gas the vibration gets pretty intense. If I hold down the clutch everything quiets down. Also today or yesterday I been hearing loud clanks in 1st if I'm not nice with the clutch (any sudden release or engagement possibly triggers it). Any idea what this might be? Thanks for your help!

Also a sidenote: what's a good place to take my car to around the bay area? I live around the San Mateo area. I'd like to take it to a rotary shop to get a full checkup.

 

drive shaft could be out of balance or yes it could be the u-joints

have you made and hard shifts into your other gears to see if it makes that clanky noise cause it could be your mounts

 

front diff mount.

 

ok first the clunk when shifting is the front mount on the differential has given out. it'll cost 100-150, you don't even want to know the labor if you don't do it yourself

vibration on the highway, can be unbalanced wheels, worn out tie rod ends, worn u joints, also just from the frount diff mount being dead.

i'd suggest you do the work and, tune up yourself, theres very few rotary shops around here , the dealerships know absolutely nothing about our cars.

if your unable to repairs yourself it's gonna be a very rough ride owning an rx7

 

I can almost guarantee its your u joints making the vibration. Same thing happened to me and hopefully you don't have the staked driveshaft and instead have the one witch c-clips. If you want to double check it heres how I did it: put the car on jack stands well clear of the ground and run it in gear (with someone inside of course to man the brakes and work the throttle of course) then watch the driveshaft from a safe distance you should see it vibrating all over the place the reason it quits when you push the clutch in is that the load is gone from it so the vibration lessens te clunk could be attributed to the u joints but check all your mounts as mentioned above just to make sure

 

ok so I have hunted down a used driveshaft. Now I'm also trying to find a front diff mount. What's involved in installing the front diff mount? Maybe someone can give me a quick idea before I go dig in the fsm.

 

dont drive 130 with tire plugs?