Clunk or a Click During Acceleration

PieEyedPiper · Sep 10, 2006

I've had this problem for a while now. It all started after I had a v8 shop do my clutch job

barf: ).
When taking off even under light throttle my car will clunk or click really loud, once, and then carry on its merry way. This also occurs when under acceleration.

So it happens when:
i.e. Starting from a stop sign, going up my driveway or giving it some gas in 2nd to scoot around town, when turning when going straight etc..

The sound is quite loud and I can feel it through the entire car. Seems like it is coming from the passenger side but its all subjective.

I've changed the fluid in my rear end and transfer case. Both oils came out relatively clean and there were no metal chunks, hardly any glitter even. I would like to cross these off my list as the possible culprit because my transfer case showed no signs of wear and moved quite freely when turn it by hand (I removed the unit today for inspection). And the rear end seemed good too - plus the sound isn't coming from behind me.

Unless someone can give me some more suggestions I think I've narrowed it down to my transmission/clutch/center diff or my axles.

The funny thing about my axles is that I yanked on all of 'em real good today when the car was jacked up and not one has any play or movement whatsoever. Nor were any of the boots torn.

I'm poor and frustrated, can anyone give me some ideas?

bluestreak9999 · Sep 11, 2006

Did you check you motor/tranny mounts?

Demon5spd · Sep 11, 2006

Yeah your motor/tranny mounts would be a great place to look i recently bought a 92 laser and had the same problem but the previous owner said he replace all the mounts with urethane ones.

Sadly the rear on was not replace, when i took it out i dont think there was any rubber left LOL

'

I replaced the mount and it was perfect no noise at all.

PieEyedPiper · Sep 11, 2006

Thanks for the suggestion about the motor/tranny mounts. These have previously been suggested to me, however, I've not been able to determine where all the mounts are located and or how to know if they are bad.
Maybe later I can post some pictures of a few of my mounts for somone to assess.

For now I'll spend the remainder of my time before class searching about motor mounts.
Thanks

Demon5spd · Sep 11, 2006

http://www.plymouthlaser.com/bmount.htm

Here's a link that should help you it's on a 1G but you get the idea

Drift_SM · Sep 11, 2006

Might possibly be the drive shaft slaping your under carrige.
Quite common, either the mechanics who did your clutch did not tighten down your carrier bearings, or they are worn out.

Get under your car, (withjack stands!) and shake the hell out of your drive shaft to see if it moves any more then a half inch. Either way, take a wrench and tighten down the bracket bolts on the carrier bearings. Then post your results. Takes all of 10 minutes and it will solve or cross-out a possible cause of your "clunk."

:thumb:

andymoraitis · Sep 11, 2006

Drift_SM said:
Might possibly be the drive shaft slaping your under carrige.
Quite common, either the mechanics who did your clutch did not tighten down your carrier bearings, or they are worn out.

I was thinking the same thing as Alex, but this was more of a problem on the 1G's than 2G's. Still worth a shot though.

PieEyedPiper · Sep 11, 2006

Thanks Demon5spd, Drift_SM, and andymoraitis for chiming in.
I have checked the carrier bearings before and could not force much movement out of the driveshaft. I can press a fair amount (260lbs+) and could not get the driveshaft to come close to hitting the bottom of the car.
I will still look into it once more though you can never be too sure.

As for the mounts, thanks for the link. I searched for a while this morning but could not find any information intructing me how to tell if a mount is bad? I mean if I touched it and it turned to dust I'd have a pretty good idea ..but short of that I'm not sure how to tell.
Would it be worth it for me to take some pictures of the more accessible mounts for you guys to see?

For what its worth, the mount on the drivers side near the timing belt has this slab of rubber-like material that doesn't seem to do anything. It has a hole in the middle that a metal bar goes through (holding it to the mount). This piece slides freely from side to side and doesn't appear to be much more than a space saver. Is that how it is supposed to be?

PieEyedPiper · Sep 25, 2006

Ok, its been 2 weeks exactly since my last update.
They very next day after filling up my transfer case with Redline Shockproof Heavy gear oil, my clicking and clunking stopped!!

No clue why. Maybe since I had to tilt the xfer case pointing down to reinsert the driveshaft the spillage of fluid out the end coated the ujoints on the driveshaft enough to stop the noise? And thats assuming that it was the u-joints, which I have no proof of. All I know is that my clunking is gone, I have new fluid in the xfer case and now my ujoints are nicely lubed since I had to tilt/spill the xfer case to re-connect it.

I also learned a good thing or two about motor mounts after some searching and lastly some in-depth inspection of my own mounts.
They look maybe 60-70%. Most are cracked and missing pieces but they are still quite secure. I will probably have to replace them/get inserts in the next 10,000 miles.

But..there is bad news to all this. I've now developed a new problem. I've only been driving on it for 3 days, but its is definitely getting worse.
On day 0, I doubled checked the fluid level of my xfer case ( I was paranoid it was leaking ) and then on day 1 I noticed some sort of noise, entirely unique, that would happen under load changes in the driveline.
So thats when decelerating, and engaging and disengaging the clutch. I only notice it coming in and out of 1st and 2nd and usually when making a corner or turn.
I can feel the anomaly through both the clutch and gas pedals.

I figured I should change my oil and my tranny fluid today but I couldn't get my hands on any tranny fluid to speak of (seriously, what kind of wal-mart automotive department doesn't stock manual tranny fluid but stocks rows upon rows of ATF WTF ).

So... any takers?

PSI NRG · Sep 25, 2006

If it comes back check these 2 things CV joints they will click or clunk under acceleration/ decelleration or going around turns. Not sure if this applys to dsms but My dads blazer would clunk when you gave it gas underload cause there was slack in the drive shaft not sure how you fix that could just be old and warn out and need to be replaced also check the fluid in the rear diff. Wiseman wanna chime in about the driveshaft?

PieEyedPiper · Feb 24, 2008

PieEyedPiper said:
Ok, its been 2 weeks exactly since my last update.
They very next day after filling up my transfer case with Redline Shockproof Heavy gear oil, my clicking and clunking stopped!!

No clue why. Maybe since I had to tilt the xfer case pointing down to reinsert the driveshaft the spillage of fluid out the end coated the ujoints on the driveshaft enough to stop the noise? And thats assuming that it was the u-joints, which I have no proof of. All I know is that my clunking is gone, I have new fluid in the xfer case and now my ujoints are nicely lubed since I had to tilt/spill the xfer case to re-connect it.

I also learned a good thing or two about motor mounts after some searching and lastly some in-depth inspection of my own mounts.
They look maybe 60-70%. Most are cracked and missing pieces but they are still quite secure. I will probably have to replace them/get inserts in the next 10,000 miles.

But..there is bad news to all this. I've now developed a new problem. I've only been driving on it for 3 days, but its is definitely getting worse.
On day 0, I doubled checked the fluid level of my xfer case ( I was paranoid it was leaking ) and then on day 1 I noticed some sort of noise, entirely unique, that would happen under load changes in the driveline.
So thats when decelerating, and engaging and disengaging the clutch. I only notice it coming in and out of 1st and 2nd and usually when making a corner or turn.
I can feel the anomaly through both the clutch and gas pedals.

I figured I should change my oil and my tranny fluid today but I couldn't get my hands on any tranny fluid to speak of (seriously, what kind of wal-mart automotive department doesn't stock manual tranny fluid but stocks rows upon rows of ATF WTF ).

So... any takers?

Sooo... I must have been on crack when I posted that. Man I've come a long way since those days!

Fluid changes did nothing for my issues. Completely wrong direction.

I was convinced for a time that the clunk was, indeed, from slack in the driveshaft or the spider gears or my CV joints etc etc.

But when it came down to the facts, its wasn't slack in the components, it was slack in the mounting of said components.

My rear motor mount was missing the big bolt that goes through the bushing. So yeah, no wonder I was having issues.

$6 and an OEM bolt later, I was good to go!

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Clunk or a Click During Acceleration

PieEyedPiper

bluestreak9999

Demon5spd

PieEyedPiper

Demon5spd

Drift_SM

andymoraitis

PieEyedPiper

PieEyedPiper

PSI NRG

PieEyedPiper

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