Ringing Drive Line Clunk

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Joined
Mar 13, 2003
Threads
834
Messages
5,790
Location
North Front Range, CO
I found what was making the bullet hitting a steel target sound on my 80.
Its the front and rear drives shaft slip yoke. There is free play (slop) in the slip yokes. When I rotate the drive shaft back and forth I can here it make a slight clinging noise. Add the torque of the motor at high idle at warmup and its a ring. At idle its a clank.

Several years ago I replaced the rear drives haft slip yoke end (the short end of drive shaft) with a used slip yoke, so I might have more free play in the yoke than others.

It makes sense about the ringing noise as I can see the diff's or t-case/canter diff make a ringing noise unless they are out of oil. Tap the hollow drive shaft and it rings. I haven't greases it in forever so I need to clean it out so when I do add grease I dont turn the drive shaft into a hydraulic ram again and over heat the t-case.
Guess you could tape a piece of foam insulation around the drive shaft to see if the ringing noise deadened. Just do that as a test, DO NOT drive with the foam in it.

One way to find out if your slip yoke is plugged is to add grease and then remove the grease zirk. If your grease comes out the zirk hole under pressure then you probably have a plugged slip yoke. Another way is to see if you have grease flinging off the drive shaft at the slip yoke after you add grease. No grease flinging off, you may have a plugged slip yoke.

There is a lot of drive line play in the t-case and diffs that makes noises too.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom