Loose, Clunking Driveshaft.

[PieEyedPiper]

When I engage my clutch or give the car some gas I can here a kind of "clack" or "clunk" from underneath the car. I can feel it right through the floor and from feedback in the clutch and gas pedals.

I have ruled out carrier bearings. Mine are in good shape and I could not get the driveshaft to hit the floor of the car nor hit the top of the CB's no matter how hard I pushed.

I had the car up on jackstands and found that my driveshaft was "loose". It has about 1/2 to 1 full inch of travel in either rotational directions. I can easily turn it by hand, and when it finally "catches" or hits whatever is supposed to secure it I hear the same sound that I get when I drive.
A single, but noticable, clack or clunk.

The sound is coming from where the driveshaft enters the transfer case (forigve me if I've misnamed something, I'm completely drivetrain inept).

Here is a thread further outlining my investigation:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224229

I could use some help!!
Thanks!

 

[larsrya8]

Replace the U-joints?

 

[PieEyedPiper]

could you elaborate? Like I said, I'm completely in the dark when it comes to drivetrain components.
Thank you!

 

[GVR4592]

The U-joints are the joints that connect the driveshaft to the transfer case and the rear differential.

This might help you better understand: http://www.plymouthlaser.com/dshaft.htm

 

[PieEyedPiper]

Wow, that looks like so much work! I guess it's a good thing that I don't think it's my U-joints?
The play is actually inside the transfer case - the joints themselves look to be tight and not loose or have any play in them.
Am I making assumptions?

 

[PieEyedPiper]

I'm not getting a lot of feedback from the drivetrain tech forum - so I thought I'd give it a shot on this forum where more people might see it.

When I engage my clutch or give the car some gas I can here a kind of "clack" or "clunk" from underneath the car. I can feel it right through the floor and from feedback in the clutch and gas pedals.

I have ruled out carrier bearings. Mine are in good shape and I could not get the driveshaft to hit the floor of the car nor hit the top of the CB's no matter how hard I pushed.

I had the car up on jackstands and found that my driveshaft was "loose". It has about 1/2 to 1 full inch of travel in either rotational directions. I can easily turn it by hand, and when it finally "catches" or hits whatever is supposed to secure it I hear the same sound that I get when I drive.
A single, but noticable, clack or clunk.

The sound is coming from where the driveshaft enters the transfer case (forigve me if I've misnamed something, I'm completely drivetrain inept).

Here is a thread further outlining my investigation:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224229

I could use some help!!
Thanks!

 

[joosdawg]

i dont have an answer to your problem but i can safley say my car has done it sense i bought it on occasion. Its not every time but somtimes ill stop and when i put it in gear its like it has to pick up the slack somwhere and makes a small clunk noise. Ive been driving it for many miles and racing at the track and everything else and have had no problems or parts fail on me in the drivetrain so it cant be too bad, at least in my case.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

Thats a great description of what happens, the car actually does have to pick up the slack before it goes.

Does it happen often? I can control it to an extent, but it happens almost everytime I start in first.

 

[joosdawg]

Thats a great description of what happens, the car actually does have to pick up the slack before it goes.

Does it happen often? I can control it to an extent, but it happens almost everytime I start in first.

well as i said it doesnt happen to often but after going on vacation for a week once i got back in my car it happened at every stop light til it disappeared. It seems to only happen when its not been used for some reason or just at random times. I was actually attempting to hunt the noise down a couple months ago but couldnt figure it out for the life of me and just decided not to baby it or anything and if it is a sign of somthing about to fail that it would happen. Now after that time ive driven over 6K city and highway and still nothing. Everything has been perfect. The last time i remember hearing/feeling it was about a week ago after a 200 mile drive which would put my cold driveshaft/xfer case theory to rest. To me personally is sounds like it happens either inside the xfer case or close to it maybe where the driveshaft goes in or somthing its just too hard to pinpoint and pissed me off so i quit looking.

 

[joosdawg]

i just thought of somthing else... Sense i have changed fluid over to mobil 1 75W90 ive only heard it 2-3 times. Before that it had some generic stuff and it did it alot more. Sorry if you wrote in the other thread about this, but did you happen to change your xfer case fluid?

 

[reeper]

I dont know if this will help but take a look, there is also mor elinks on www.vfaq.com under drivetrain

http://www.geocities.com/qwik93awd/Vfaq/rearendthumpfix.htm

 

[Drift_SM]

I have the same problem...it accurs when I dont give the car enough gas when taking off in first...it bogs out a lil bit and it feels like somthign is slapping the under cairrage. Like you I ruled out the cairrer bearings....

But whats wierd is I to have the roll play in my drive shaft like you...i thought it was normal, maybe not?

As of right now i belive it is the front motor mount....under the tranny..because mine is in very bad shape....

I came to think this because I can hear this noise at low speeds when hitting bumpy roads......the tranny sits so close the the cross member and any amount of bump, tourq or boggin out will cause the tranny to clunck agianst the cross member, that my theory.

Im going to order the new mount and slap it in and post back my results.

-alex

 

[joosdawg]

I have the same problem...it accurs when I dont give the car enough gas when taking off in first...it bogs out a lil bit and it feels like somthign is slapping the under cairrage. Like you I ruled out the cairrer bearings....

But whats wierd is I to have the roll play in my drive shaft like you...i thought it was normal, maybe not?

As of right now i belive it is the front motor mount....under the tranny..because mine is in very bad shape....

I came to think this because I can hear this noise at low speeds when hitting bumpy roads......the tranny sits so close the the cross member and any amount of bump, tourq or boggin out will cause the tranny to clunck agianst the cross member, that my theory.

Im going to order the new mount and slap it in and post back my results.

-alex

Your theory sounds very good but not to disprove it but i actually fabricated a custom solid mount for the front and rear mounts to eliminate any movment and it still made the noise. Here is a picture of one i did...

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

As you can see there the only room there is would be for the bolt that goes through the center and it allows absolutly NO movment. So that one didnt solve mine but it maybe yours

 

[dnhieu]

Your theory sounds very good but not to disprove it but i actually fabricated a custom solid mount for the front and rear mounts to eliminate any movment and it still made the noise. Here is a picture of one i did...

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

As you can see there the only room there is would be for the bolt that goes through the center and it allows absolutly NO movment. So that one didnt solve mine but it maybe yours

damn your car must rattle the hell out of your teeth!

anyways your drive shaft is only supposed to have a little bit of play. if its got excessive play its time to replace thoes carrier bearings or fill them up with caulk by following the vfaq for it...

 

[joosdawg]

damn your car must rattle the hell out of your teeth!

anyways your drive shaft is only supposed to have a little bit of play. if its got excessive play its time to replace thoes carrier bearings or fill them up with caulk by following the vfaq for it...

haha yea its pretty nuts. I dont use those for daily driving only track use and when i was trying to diagnose the problem. I actually made one of these for a GST i had to help with wheel hop and it did to a certain extent aswell but the vibration is a little excessive with both. One in is not so bad though.

 

[GVR4592]

Could the exhaust be hitting something? When I got my car the exhaust wasn't installed correctly and it was hitting the differential under accleration. I moved it away from the diff and no more noises. Have you checked your u-joints?

Check out these links and see if they help

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

http://www.geocities.com/qwik93awd/Vfaq/rearendthumpfix.htm

 

[PieEyedPiper]

Thanks for the suggestion on the exhaust but thats not the problem either. Car doesnt even have to be moving for the noise to happen - plus that would leave the play in the driveshaft unacounted for.

Also play in the driveshaft's rotating assembly is unrelated to the carrier bearings so no, fixing up the the CB's as per the vfaq qouldnt help either.

And for the u-joint suggestion, could you explain how they would cause this to be happening? As far as I know the ui-joints are just that. Joints. They connect the peices of the driveshaft together right? (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong! I'm a drivetrain NOOB!) unless there is a u-joint INSIDE the transfer case I don't believe they could be the culprits.

Thank you for all the suggestions everyone. I would like to further narrow this down, in hopes of someone finding out the true cause of my ailments, by saying, with a fair bit of confidence, that the problem is INSIDE the t-case or even in the transmission.
Thank you.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

I dropped by my mechanic today, same guy I had do my clutch install after my stock pp grenaded. I asked him about my problem and he figured it was 'normal'. He had a cop car up on a lift and showed me the play in the driveshaft, it was about a quarter the amount of play I ahve in mine. He said that mine should be roughly twice that much play normally since I'm AWD. I agreed that would be the case, except I have at least 2x as much play as we determined I should have.

He said he's not had a DSM t-case apart before, but his shop IS a transmission shop (for trucks mostly) so we discussed that it can't really be much different. I confirmed for him that my car has 2 spider gears and no Viscous Coupling (thats correct right? means I have no LSD right?..cause I don't ).

He suggested I take it apart and have a look inside. We also talked about the chances of the splines being stripped, but we figured I'd be having different/more symptoms (i.e. whining, roaring, grinding, driveability issues etc.) We think it would be a good idea to:

a) check the splines.
b) empty the fluid and check it for metal flakes or bits.
c) check the spider gears for worn/missing teeth.

Is there anything else I should check whiel I am doing this? how long is the t-case removal supposed to take a fairly handy guy that often is stumped by simple bolts that don't want to come loose?

Also one of my concerns is that if I remove the t-case and find something wrong what should I do? Is it possible to just leave the t-case out and unbolt the driveshaft from the rear and drive the car as a FWD until I can repair it?

 

[GVR4592]

I think I misunderstood what you were saying. You can rotate the driveshaft and it rotates freely then stops and makes the cluinking sound?

 

[DSMedEG]

This might not help but here you go, i had a mazda b200 1984(yay), and it made the same clunking noise and it was from the ujoint, the problem was that the bearings were frozen (without grease) and bent. it looked pretty crazy, the noise was from the little roller bearings moving without lubribation in the joint. depending on abuse this happens alot to cars that get beat like mine.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

I think I misunderstood what you were saying. You can rotate the driveshaft and it rotates freely then stops and makes the cluinking sound?

yes.

 

[Drift_SM]

""" I confirmed for him that my car has 2 spider gears and no Viscous Coupling (thats correct right? means I have no LSD right?..cause I don't ).""""



wrong, our cars DO have viscous couplings, and evry AWD dsm has it. It works with the spider gears to let the back wheels slip when corrnering. If we did not have viscous couplings our cars, they would skip and chirp around corners beacuase the rear wheels would be moving at the same speed. with insnt good because the outside wheel allways moves faster causing the inside wheel to wind up and chirp.

It is A LIMITED slip gear for turning...witch serves only one perpose, witch is letting the back wheels turn freely at seperate speeds, then there is the LSD in your rear diff with is a LIMITED slip gear for traction. (if your gsx, has one)

I know this becasue my viscous coupling blew out and I took my intire center diff out to fix the problem....I asumed it was busted spider gears...but nope.. the viscouse couplign was fried, and had liquid metal seaping out.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

""" I confirmed for him that my car has 2 spider gears and no Viscous Coupling (thats correct right? means I have no LSD right?..cause I don't ).""""



wrong, our cars DO have viscous couplings, and evry AWD dsm has it. It works with the spider gears to let the back wheels slip when corrnering. If we did not have viscous couplings our cars, they would skip and chirp around corners beacuase the rear wheels would be moving at the same speed. with insnt good because the outside wheel allways moves faster causing the inside wheel to wind up and chirp.

It is A LIMITED slip gear for turning...witch serves only one perpose, witch is letting the back wheels turn freely at seperate speeds, then there is the LSD in your rear diff with is a LIMITED slip gear for traction. (if your gsx, has one)

I know this becasue my viscous coupling blew out and I took my intire center diff out to fix the problem....I asumed it was busted spider gears...but nope.. the viscouse couplign was fried, and had liquid metal seaping out.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I didn't know enough about it to make that distinction - I'm learning bit by bit about drivetrains now that I have to diagnose one.
Thats crazy about your VC. Can you further elaborate about your symptoms and the procedure you under went to get back on the road? I just don't know if I'm sure I'd know what to do once I opened it up (assuming the splines looked fine).

 

[cfisher]

I'm having the same issue on my GSX. I normally get the noise at lower RPM's. If I give it alot of gas at lower RPM's and then let off the gas real quick I get a grinding noise coming from my driveshaft. It sounds like it's coming from the center differential. I'll have it on jacks this weekend to see what I find and I will let you know.

 

[Nelsons91AWD]

I'm not getting a lot of feedback from the drivetrain tech forum - so I thought I'd give it a shot on this forum where more people might see it.

When I engage my clutch or give the car some gas I can here a kind of "clack" or "clunk" from underneath the car. I can feel it right through the floor and from feedback in the clutch and gas pedals.

I have ruled out carrier bearings. Mine are in good shape and I could not get the driveshaft to hit the floor of the car nor hit the top of the CB's no matter how hard I pushed.

I had the car up on jackstands and found that my driveshaft was "loose". It has about 1/2 to 1 full inch of travel in either rotational directions. I can easily turn it by hand, and when it finally "catches" or hits whatever is supposed to secure it I hear the same sound that I get when I drive.
A single, but noticable, clack or clunk.

The sound is coming from where the driveshaft enters the transfer case (forigve me if I've misnamed something, I'm completely drivetrain inept).

Here is a thread further outlining my investigation:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224229

I could use some help!!
Thanks!

Well i also have massive drivetrain clunk, i filled the carrier bearings with silicone and it didnt help my clunk problem.

my friend also had the same problem he rebuilt his driveshaft, with a new yoke, and new ujoints and new nuts and bolts, ended up costing him around $150, and took all the slop out of his driveshaft and eliminated the clunk.

www.vfaq.com can show you how to rebuild the driveshaft yourself


and somthing else you might want to consider, he bought new carrier bearings but ended up using his old silicone bearings and they worked out fine.

i know were i am putting my next $150

goodluck and PM me with any questions