yo guys....I'm getting a weird scraping/clanging sound in my back end at low speeds, and a full blown rumble on the highway.

I thought it might be the u joints, but i got under the car and there didn't seem to be any play in them. There was however a lot of play in the differential when i turned the drive shaft. I checked the oil in the rear end, and it was about half an inch below the filler.

What do you guys think?

thanks!

 

What rear axle do you have?

You will have to pull the diff cover off and inspect what is going on inside. You could have a bad bearing, worn ring and pinion or worn spider and side gears. Take some pics and post them if you can.

 

I quess the best you can hope for is the pinion nut has backed off but it sound more serious than that.

 

bah. hopefully i can attempt this soon, but probably not since its getting really cold out. are parts available for this?

i have the smaller rear end..... 7 something.

 

What vehicle and motor do you have?

If it is a small axle, it would be a 7 1/4. . . . . . . . or an 8 1/4 depending on what you classify as a small axle.

 

i think its 7 1/4. its a 76 dart custom with slant 6.

 

yeah you probably do have a 7 1/4 rear alxe then. Everything is small on that axle so i would start by pulling the diff cover and see what you can find.

 

cool...I'll get on that as soon as i can and report back. In the meantime, would it be a bad idea to drive the car around? in other word......can this be dangerous?

 

Depending on what it is, you could end up stranded somewhere. If it is a bearing, then you should be fine for some time depending on how loud it is and how you drive it.

 

If you think you have problems, you shouldn't be driving it UNTIL its fixed.

And you'll have the 7 1/4 under that car.

 

i had a similar problem in one of my cars and it was the spider gears totally shot.the ring and pinion gears were also worn pretty badly.i drove the car for a long time like this and it did not break.i only pulled it apart because someone hit me on the wheel and bent the drum brake.in my case it was cheaper to replace the whole diff drum to drum rather than fix that diff

 

yeah yeah......but i need my ride! haha however, I don't know if i have enough nerve to take it on the BQE.

So assuming the worst.....where does a guy find new spider gears?

 

Ebay is your new best friend.

It is not as bad as people make it out to be. Depending on the damage done to the internals, it may be cheaper to just buy a used one. Thing is, you won't know til you take off the cover.

 

Alright. I feel like an idiot, but mystery solved.

It was the friggin u joints after all.

It's funny because I actually bought them a few weeks ago, but when I got under the car I couldn't tell if they were bad or not, which led me to think it was something else. Anyway, I ended up taking it to a guy, but it was cool because he let me watch him work and showed me what a bad u joint looks like.

another lesson learned!