horrible whinning noise

[Clayton]

About as long as I have owned my car (since about 50K miles) it has made this obnoxious whinning noise from the rear at about 63 mph. It was not horribly loud, but noticable. Lately it has got worse. Infact, it is almost unbearable to drive at certain speeds it is so loud, so I have basically tried to quiet driving unless it is absolutely necessary. I have heard different opinions from people and really am not sure what it can be, and since this is my first rear wheel drive car, I really do not know where to begin.

Here are the exact symptoms I have noticed thus far: It is a loud whinning noise that starts quietly and by the time you are going about 60-65 it is just terrible. If i go to about 80 mph it is reduced to a slight whine, not that loud, making me drive 80 everywhere. When I let off the gas you can hear it whine down, but not as loudly as it is when accellerating or while your cruising. In addition, when I stop sometimes and go to accellerate, there is a slight slipping feeling in the back, esp if I am going forward after backing up.

Any ideas?

['98 BlackBird]

Sounds like your rear differential is going.
Do you have an open diff or LSD?

[ellik]

[edit] nevermind, you have a 1-piece driveshaft.

id say differential too.

[Clayton]

Is that expensive? Should I try to just replace the bearings first, or is that a waste of time?

[99bluebird]

My car made a similar sound, but not soo bad, it was a whining at 58mph. It is your ring and pinion. I replaced mine with with a set off ebay I got for 25.00 (stock 3.23 ratio). While I was at it I got a limited slip carrier ($110) and a set of bearings and seals ($90). So the parts total was 225 and labor totaled 250. So I got that problem fixed and a lsd for under 500. Very good decision and the lsd is soo much fun. My installer did say that some gear brands are quieter than others, so if you want to be sure its done right find a place that will do the labor and then have them order a new set of gears for you, high quality. I just didnt want to spend 400 on the gears. It was hard to find a place to do the install though, I had to call 12 different places just to find 2 that would work on rear ends.

[FunkZ]

Sounds like either the axle bearings or it's in the differential (carrier bearings, pinion bearing, gears)

Axle bearings would be cheaper and easier to replace. If you pop the rear cover, pull the carrier lock pin and remove the C-clips you can pull out your axles a few inches and check for scoring.

[Clayton]

Wow, a lot of this sounds like egyptian to me. I need to buy another repair manual since I lost mine and do some serious reading.

I have access to all types of tools and can do about anything if I have the instructions, so I guess I can do some of the things that were recommended. My only issue right now is time. I will have to get time off from work to look at all this. Any idea how long it will take to take apart all of this stuff?

Other than that, let's say if it is the differential, what do I really need to do? I went to a local repair shop and they told me I would have to replace the entire rear axle and the differential itself. I looked up the actual differential and it just looks like a big gear, why can't I just replace that?

[ September 17, 2004, 10:32 AM: Message edited by: Clayton ]

[ellik]

all of the components in the rear end can be replaced individually. you can pull out the differential and put a new one back in. there are a few good write-ups floating around on how to do it. If its your gears, well I would recommend having a shop do it because it takes quite a bit of skill and know how on setting up the backlash and patterning. Unless its your outer wheel bearings, I dont think you will be able to really pin-point it without tearing the pumpkin off and pulling everything out. at that point, if its the gears then you should have somebody who knows what they are doing do the work.

I guess I would recommend checking the outer wheel bearings for scoring, then decide weather or not you want to attempt changing the differential to a posi unit yourself. If that doesnt fix it, Id buy the gears you like to have put into it and a rebuild kit and take it to a pro to finish the rebuild for you.

[Clayton]

Okay, great news, a check on ebay found what I was looking for. I found what appears to be an entire rear end including differential only missing brakes, but how on earth would I ship it to where I am in Florida. It would come from NY. Any recommendations on fright companies for heavy parts?

[FunkZ]

Well I would check the axles first because those bearings aren't that expensive. If the axles look good though, you're right it would be cheaper to pick up a complete used rear than it would to replace all the hardware in yours and pay someone to do it. I wouldn't recommend messing with the gears unless you really know what you're doing. That's probably why that garage told you they'd have to replace the whole rear... they didn't want to touch the gears either.