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U-Joint clunking when pulling away from first?

D

dandeluca

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2020
Location
Bordentown NJ
My 1991 Volvo 240, M46 manual swap just started to make a clunking noise as I pull away in first gear. It’s not just one clunk it sort of repeatedly clunks then quiets down. Then sound seems to be coming from the location of the driveshaft bearing/u joint not the clutch or front of the transmission. The sound only appears when I’m pulling away in first. Here is a little video, probably should have turned off the music.


I’m thinking this is my U joint, but is there anything else I should be looking at?
 
Last edited:
dandeluca said:
My 1991 Volvo 240, M46 manual swap just started to make a clunking noise as I pull away in first gear. It’s not just 2 clunk sour t of repeated clunks of medium volume. Then sound seems to be coming from the location of the driveshaft bearing/u joint not the clutch of front of transmission. The sound only appears when I’m pulling away in first. Here is a little video, probably should have turned off the music.


I’m thinking this is my U joint, but is there anything else I should be looking at?
Click to expand...
That spot is about where the carrier bearing and bushing are at. Look at those.
 
Yes the i replaced the carrier bearing not too long ago. I just crawled under there, I didn't see anything wrong but shaking the drive shaft did make the spring on the carrier bearing clunk around a bit. I greased that up and see if it makes a difference.
 
Some information. The m46 swap is over a year old, this noise just started. I noticed a clunk a couple days ago and now I get that wrapping you hear in the video in any straight line acceleration only in first gear from a dead stop. If I am rolling then stomp the gas I do not get the noise.

I agree it sounds like the drive shaft is moving around too much in the bushing. The bushing was replaced when the driveshaft went in. The drive shaft was shortened and balanced by the drive shaft shop. It is oriented correctly.

I don'r really know how stiff the bushing is supposed to be but this does seem a little soft to me.


I guess the next step is to replace the bushing and see if that helps. Are there any preferred brands? This was a merle from FCP.
 
It sounds a lot like mine did when the rear u-joint (nearest the diff) was beginning to seize. Take-off in 1st caused the most change in pinion angle, and the u-joint just didn't want to articulate that far anymore.

Is yours making noise just on take-off from a stop, and it's fine when cruising? how about hard accel, like 2nd gear 4,000 rpm, floor it? I think mine also made a noise when the trunk was loaded, but it's been 6 years since I did this repair (just checked)

I found this:
173891744.jpg


I ended up with this:
173891745.jpg
 
I had that cluck very a long time. Finally pulled drive shaft out and it was a dead u joint on the front of rear shaft. Typically the rear one sees the most abuse. Just replaced both and it's now smooth sailing.
 
So I decided to pull the driveshaft and replace the U joints and bushing. I did not know the age of the old U-joints so I figured for $30 I might as well replace them.

When I pulled the old U-joints I was surprised to see they were in relatively good condition just a little dry.

IMG_1904.jpeg
I always thought they were sealed bearings, but it turned out that someone just replaced the zero with a cap. I never noticed it.

For what its worth this time I bought a Febi Bilstein center bushing to replace the Meyle. The Febi Bilstein is much firmer than Meyle.


I have not bolted back up the driveshaft yet. I'll report back if I fixed it.
 
Febi Bilstein seems to be putting out some actual quality parts for a really good price. I've been happy with all their stuff so far, light-years ahead of that MTC garbage
 
Volvo sells a hard and soft version of the bushings for both large and small drive shaft bearings.

Small bearing soft bushing = 686352
Small bearing hard bushing = 1273927
Large bearing soft bushing = 1221635
Large bearing hard bushing = 686668
 
Another HD option is the STS support bearing. It's a complete unit with bearing like the 7/9 setup probably even harder since it looks like it's sourced from a truck. 8-)
 
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