I posted on here a while ago under "transmission mount" about a noise I had coming from the rear end of my Challenger trying to locate where the problem was etc. Eventually it was decided that it was caused by excess play in the side & pinion gears & I'd better find a new diff. Well in Australia that takes a little time but eventually I found a guy willing to part with an 8 3/4 diff complete unit & the deal was done although due to his
location it took until last weekend to pick up the assembly.
Anyway yesterday at work with the Dodge on the hoist I started to unbolt the 7 1/4 diif in preparation for the changeover & while removing the tail shaft I bumped the pinion snubber with my hand & guess what.........
the bloody thing was hanging on by about 3 threads on one bolt, the other bolt was missing altogether.
That's right folks when I removed it you could plainly see the dramatic witness marks left by the yoke as it hit the underside of the snubber. The one remaining bolt was enough to hold the thing in place when the car was on a smooth level surface, but anytime you hit a bump or turned, the snubber would skew sideways & clatter like a demon on the yoke as it spun around. DOH!
So now I feel like a dope because 2 mechanics a diff expert & myself all assumed the worst & I checked everything except the pinion snubber I've wasted a couple of months & quite a few dollars on something that could have been solved with a bolt & 5 minutes work.
I now feel like I should give up playing with cars as this is the second time something like this has happened with the Dodge in the last 12 months, in fact the car developed a severe engine oil leak in November last year
which I assumed was the rear main seal becuase it appeared to be coming from the back of the sump & I had had a small weep of oil from there for a while. So I pulled the engine & found the sump seal was crimped & the main seal was ok did a few other maintenance jobs repainted it & refitted it only to find it was still leaking like a sieve. Turns out the oil pressure switch was leaking & oil had run down to the sump leading me to jump to conclusions ,the switch was replaced in 5 minutes & cost $7.
The diff problem occured on the first drive after sorting out the oil leak. so I haven't driven my Challenger since Nov 2007 because of assumptions & a certain amount of laziness on my behalf in taking so long to get around to things. maybe I should take up stamp collecting or something.
Cheers SoS