When I got my 95 miata a few weeks ago it had a noticeable clunk in the rear end when you accelerated. It is getting worse as I drive it. Normal easy driving doesn't donut but anytime you shift weight backwards it gives one or two loud clunks/pops. As I'm hoping you guys can tell me what the likely culprits are as I wait for the exhaust to cool down.
unlikely, but when I had those symptoms in the e30, it turned out the substrate "brick" in the catalytic converter had broken loose and when I accellerated hard it would slide back and bang into the back of the housing (and stuff the exhaust so the car would stumble too).
Could be a swaybar endlink binding when the rear end squats.
Check your end links. Hopefully both are connected (my $500 Miata had one completely gone, I havea felling the bolt had rusted away). Otherwise, go over the rear suspension with a pry bar, looking for any loose fasteners.
Don't the LSDs do that when they go bad?.............if a 95 Miata even has an LSD which I don't know. As Irish stated could be an end link or other suspension piece. Guess I am not too helpful here.
Check the diff mounts, usually a swaybar binding is less of a clunk and more of a creaking noise.
Check the u-joints too.
Rear diff mounts are shot. Thanks for the help guys!
In reply to icaneat50eggs:
Sorry to bring up an old thread, but did you solve the clunk? Was it the differential mounts? TIA
Bringing this one back from the dead again. I'm getting a clunk sometime when I change gears or get started, but I also have one that is not as severe during steady state driving. Is it still possibly the diff mount bushings/bolts, or are there any other likely candidates? I've got limited time to work on it right now, so once I get the back end in the air, I'm hoping to diagnose it quickly.
either diff mounts or u joints.
Wow, holy necrothread!
I'd look at the diff mounts, motor mounts and swaybar endlinks first, and also check the PPF bolts.
Also, the diff mounting arms can sometimes crack, but that usually takes hard tracking on sticky tires or a crash.
Thank you, sounds like I’ve got my list of things to check. If I can carve out some time, I’ll try to get under the car this weekend, and see what the problem or problems are. For the diff mount bushings, is it usually pretty obvious, or do I need to get a crow bar under there and see if I can move it?
Fwiw I had two driveshafts that came with the Miata jigsaw puzzle, presumably with about 200k on each. Both of them had bad u-joints - the back joint on both was stiff in one axis & slightly lose in the other, while the front joint on one shaft was very sloppy.
I got a new driveshaft from Advance online, shipped to home, for under $200 total.
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