Dare I drive this thing? Would a failing U-joint be easy to spot?
It should be easy to spot, with the car up on jack stands. You probably
won't be able to tell with the car on the ground.
The clunk is almost certainly a bad Ujoint somewhere in the drive
train; I had the same problem with Sarah. I drove her for at least six
months that way because I didn't know what the clunk was so I couldn't
fix it, and hadn't gotten to the rear suspension yet.
What's happening is that you're not shifting "smoothly enough"; instead
of all the speed matching being done by the synchros, some of the
torque is getting through and being taken up by the play in the Ujoint.
You can drive it, but be careful. Too much of that clunking and it will
hammer the trunnion in which the Ujoint runs out of round.
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