rstackjd

Still have not been able to get back under the car to look into those u-joints - but son-in-law said to crawl under the car the grab the half-shafts and see if I could notice any movement at all in them (I did the "rotate" thing and noticed no play). When I grab the half-shafts directly I still can feel no movement what so ever. I need to jack the car back up and do the same thing with the drive shaft.

The question is this - can anyone give a good description of the different sounds/behaviors of drive shaft vrs half-shaft u-joints going bad? I'm very new to this and hate to tear something apart only to find that I've "repaired" the wrong thing.

Car is an '88 vert, auto, 60K miles. No idea whether any u-joints have ever been replaced, but I doubt it.

Thanks

VAHROOM

In the early stages of half-shaft u-joint failure, I heard a "whoop whoop whoop" sound when ever I would back up and turn. I also heard it at times when going forward and turning tightly.

The driveshaft u-joint made almost a clunking sound when I would drive very slowly. It caused a vibration while going down the road and seemed to increase in strength as speed increased.

This was on MY 90 6-speed. Other people may have had different symptoms. Also I have learned that when you have one u-joint going out, it is better to do them all at once. They all take similar stress and are about the same age. Of course that is just me.

rstackjd

Thanks - yes I planned on replacing all four of the u-joints on the half-shafts, but was not planning on the drive shaft. At this point I'm almost thinking we start with the drive shaft, see if that stops the noise, and if not, move on to the half-shafts. If the drive shaft does the job then I'll probably wait until winter (if all is well) to do the half-shafts.

Its summer (almost) I want to drive not be under the car!!!

Thanks for you input.