I've never experienced a bad center diff before. But i'm guessing that is the issue that i'm experiencing. Clunking/Popping sound only when turning right under power. Doesn't make the sound with the clutch in or off the gas. It only seems to happen in 1st-3rd gear. My cv joints are about 1 year old from the auto-parts store. No torn boot / unnatural play with them. All my bushings seem fine. Car is an 1996 Subaru Impreza brighton 5spd with kyb agx, new wheel bearings, & year old cv joints. Any way to diagnose a bad center diff other than taking it out? Thanks
Find a parking lot with a good amount of space to drive in tight circles (make sure it is a clean pavement/tarmac parking lot, excessive sand or dirt will cause the car to slide/slip slightly making diagnosis harder). Crank the wheel all the way one direction and start slowly going in a circle, then lightly add gas (you don't have to go fast). If the car feels like it is "hopping," the center diff is probably having issues (another side note, really wide, sticky tires can emulate this sometimes and make it harder to tell if it is the super wide tires or the center diff). A good center diff will result in you traveling smoothly and quickly in a tight, small, circle. Can make you sick if you don't like spinning . Repeat the test in the opposite direction and see how it feels. It's something that is mostly done by feel, and helps if you know how a good or a bad car feels from previous experience. Usually a bad center diff results in noticeable issues with BOTH left and right turning. Bad ball joints like to snap/crack when turning, and powering through a corner/turn adds more stress to them, causing them to pop even more. Ball joints can be checked by jacking the car up (jack stands!!!) and grabbing the wheel at 6 and 12 o'clock. Pull the wheel back and forth, and if there is noticeable give/play (the tire will give a little, so make sure it is not the tire) the ball joint is bad. Since you are only hearing the noise under power, the ball joint may still be okay(ish) and just at the start if its failure, making it harder to detect with this test. As another random side note, now is also a good time to check your tie rods by grabbing at 3 and 9 o'clock (with the steering wheel locked/held in place) and pulling the wheel back and forth to see if there is any play there. Subaru ball joints tend to be strangely reliable, but failures usually start popping up around 200k miles... what is your mileage? The car is certainly old. If it is the start of a center diff issue, change the fluid first. If the center diff is going bad, a fluid change isn't really going to harm anything or make it worse, and it might solve the problem for a few more months to years. Your car is old, and that may buy you enough time for other things to go wrong and it just not be worth spending money on anymore. Just thinking aloud here... in the manual transmission the center diff is "engaged" all the time, isn't it? It's a viscous center diff with 50/50 split, it's not like some of the autos that require a hydraulic pump or other things to be on to send power front to rear. So if the center diff is going bad, it shouldn't make a difference in clunking/popping noises if you are on the power or coasting, would it? If the center diff locks up (fails), it should exhibit the symptoms both on and off the power, since the center diff is lock and unable to allow wheel so to spin at different speeds. Anyone else got an idea on this?
Even though its a relatively new front CV it has been well diagnosed on most Subaru's that a lot of the after market axles don't last. I would check that 1st as it is a lot easier to diagnose. Is this an auto or manual trans?
The reason i'm pulling hairs is because i've checked motion in the wheels while on jackstands. Balljoints seem fine & tie-rods. My car has 156k. It's super strange that it only does it on right turns under acceleration. I can only hear it in 1-3rd gear. 3rd gear is faintly. I've got edm wrx 17's on my car. Could be the tires being wider, but I highly doubt it. Tires are stupidly rotational and i'll swap them from front to rear to make sure it's not them. *I live in DT st paul & can only work on my car when i travel to my parents in farmington* I'll buy anyone a ice-creme or beer if they want to try to help me figure out what's going on. I'm already searching for a 5mt dccd transmission to swap into my car since i've got no abs.
If it's not binding or steering funny, I would rule out diff issues unless you have dropped clutch hard and broken or chipped teeth on the gearset
Within the past month. Did you want them? I personally would rather have gold wheels. Can you even drop the clutch hard on a 1.8l turd? Haha.
I have see all sorts of ... people do the nastiest things to a perfectly good running automobile... in fact just picked up an 02 wrx sedan with a blown center diff for cheap... rear driveline is out and still clunks a bit, just me but i'd still run it cross country,HA! joking if you run across any tidbits helpful LMK going to rebuild it and see what happens
I bet those are the ones. I've got a screenshot of the Craigslist ad from April. Haha. If the time ever comes, I'd definitely be interested. Ideally would like to see them on my car before committing, but I've always loved those for some reason.
I'd be happy to unload them. I don't believe there is any curb rash on them. I really think my car would look better with gold wheels & hate to paint these.
