Fellow Listers,

Way back in August I posted about an ugly driveline noise my Syncro had,
only in reverse.

In September, fellow lister Richard Jones came by and crawled around and
listened.  We reached agreement that it was an ugly noise, and probably
related to the driveshaft.

Today, I  got the right side of the Syncro off of the ground, spread out
my rug and went to work, planning to remove the driveshaft starting at
the rear.  While manually positioning the driveshaft to gain access to
the bolts, I noticed that there were metal filings on a small piece of
the skid plate which is fastened between the main skid plate rails,
immediately above the rear U-joint.  This small plate was not obviously
bent, and not obviously touching the driveshaft flange but was extremely
close to it.  I removed this small plate and it was immediately obvious
that the threaded plates into which the 13mm bolts which secure the
driveshaft had been dragging on this plate, and the plate was rather
severely bent once removed.  Apparently, the reverse torque when backing
would cause the driveline to shift enough that these items would come
into contact and make the noise we observed.  I straightened,
reconditioned and re-installed the plate, and no more noise.  Needless
to say, I am thrilled to find that I was able to facilitate a very
simple fix at $0 cost and about 1hr work and was very fortunate that my
driveshaft removal project started at the rear where I'd notice the
problem before spending a lot of time and effort on removing the
driveshaft.

I assume that on one of my trips to my cabin (up a 4WD trail), I managed
to bang this little piece up, but bent it up evenly enough that it was
not obvious it was damaged until it was removed.
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*Best Regards,
Jon B Kanas
Home: 303-678-0658
Mobile: 303-746-1785
Email: kanas@qadas.com <mailto:kanas@qadas.com>
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonkanas
Longmont, Colorado; Cultural Center of the Universe
Website: http://www.qadas.com/~kanas <http://www.qadas.com/%7Ekanas>
AOL Instant Messenger ID: KanasColo
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