26/6/08 - A loud clonk!

My Jimny has gained a significant clonk when letting up the clutch, there is also a lot of drive chain "shunt" and rubber "squeaking" whenever the back axle is exercised in any way.

I have crawled underneath and pushed and pulled things.

With the handbrake on (so the wheels are locked and will not rotate) and pushing the vehicle forwards and backwards I get the same squeaking and can see movement in the trailing arm bushes and the axle/diff attempts to rotate downwards, creating a vertical movement on the prop.

This video shows the trailing arm bush.

http://www.bigjimny.com/images/phocagallery/videos/trailingarm.mov

These videos show the prop/diff moving up and down.

http://www.bigjimny.com/images/phocagallery/videos/diffmove1.mov
http://www.bigjimny.com/images/phocagallery/videos/diffmove2.mov


So it looks like I need to cancel next weeks MOT and off-roading trip