[TR] IRS rear clunk - RESOLVED!

[Brian Induni]

I wanted to follow up and let the group know of an issue I resolved. First,
thanks to everyone who has provided help / feedback over the past year I've
been hunting the cause of this issue.

The car is a 1967 TR4A, IRS; the issue is a rear end clunk upon take-off,
shift, and bumps. Having welded in enough extra support and reinforcement to
the IRS pins while the frame was bare, I was pretty certain I could cross
these off the list of possible causes. I even swapped out a diff unit
thinking it was a bad inner bearing (any one need a spare IRS diff??), but
still had the issue. It wasn't until I had bought a second hand half shaft
and was about to dismantle it to clean and check that I noticed there was
absolutely *NO* play in the sliding splines! I checked the axels on the car,
and sure enough, you could hear a very faint 'click' when you rotated the
halves against each other. Upon further inspection of the donor axle, I
found the splines to be heavily smeared with grease. Mine weren't of course
because I had cleaned them up nicely and didn't give thought to really
packing the grease in. After packing the grease in the spline cavity and
reassembling, I had a quiet and smooth riding 4A!

Moral of the story - if it slides, rotates, or rubs, pack it full of
grease!!

Brian
1967 TR4A, no clunk, clink, or clank!