I thought I was leaving for a nice drive of about 150 miles in the
TR6 a few days ago, but I didn't get farther than the gas station
before some nasty noises turned me right around. When taking off
from a stop I get a crunching sound plus a "zzzup" thrown in once in
a while. My first thought was that I had a stone or two from my
newly graveled driveway sitting on top of the drive shaft. But I
also thought it could be the tranny or the differential, and I didn't
want to take any chances out on the road. I got home okay. In fact,
the car ran smoothly once up to speed. It only made the sounds at
takeoff. I got it up on jackstands and couldn't find any evidence of
stones or loose flange bolts at either end of the drive shaft or at
the rear axles. I also couldn't reproduce the sounds with the wheels
off the ground, either with the rear wheels under power or by
turning the front ones by hand. I also couldn't feel or hear
anything when I turned the rear wheels by hand or the drive shaft
with a wrench on the flange bolts.
When I got the car on the ground and found that it still made the
sounds (no lucky fix!), I started thinking it might be a disc brake
pad issue. It seemed like the sounds were coming from the
front. Today I replaced the pads and the nasty looking anti squeal
shims. In the process I rotated the rotors with and without pads in
place and got no noises. However, I did get something like the
"zzzup" noise when I deflected the rotor guard into the rotor while
turning it. After everything was back together I made sure that the
guard wasn't touching the rotor before getting the car back on the
ground. Just took a drive up the road, and nothing has changed;
crunchy noises and "zzzups" at takeoff, forward and backward, but
fine after it's up to speed. I think I can feel a little something
through the shifter when the noises occur, but I'm not really
positive about that. I also think that the noises stop when I
disengage the clutch, but by the time I reach speed enough for that,
the noises are usually gone anyway.
So folks, what am I up against? Does a transmission make those kinds
of noises when it's failing? Is there something else I should be
looking at? Thanks for any help you can offer.
Tim
1974 TR6
1980 Spitfire
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