[TR] The TR6 rear-end clunk

[Lee Daniels]

Last year I picked up my second TR6 ('74) and have been using it as my driver.
Good, not great condition, but runs great and looks really great from 20 feet.

I've got a pretty substantial clunk when I apply power in reverse. So today I
climbed underneath and checked out the differential mountings. Looks like the
P.O. has already been there, new rubber mounts and no obvious cracks. The case
looks like it was cleaned and maybe painted within the last thousand miles. So
I started moving things around by hand (rear wheels in the air i.e. jackstands
rear and wheels chocks front, parking brake off). Here's what I found, and my
questions:

1. So how much backlash should there be in the diff? I.e. rotate one wheel,
other one fixed, then reverse direction - I've got maybe 5 degrees of play
here.

2. What about the u-joints? One axle has a wee bit of play in the u-joints -
should they be almost completely without lash?

3. It feels like there may be some play in the axle splines on one side - how
much is allowable here?

4. If there is a problem with the diff mounts, would I be able to detect it
without pulling the diff first?

I've got 6 or 8 spare new u-joints, so pulling the axles out and refreshing
those would be "easy" (sort-of) for starters.

Note that I've got wire wheels, but I started there and see that they seem
tight and without play.

Thanks,
 Lee

'74 Maple TR6 (never-ending restoration)
'74 Pimento TR6 - daily driver
The Woodlands, TX