I broke something in my roadster today and don't know what it is. Starting out from a stopsign in first gear it made a loud BANG, followed by a mechanical ratcheting kinda noise. It has all its gears, and can drive under power, but makes this nasty-sounding noise. It happened a short distance from my house, so I limped home. 350 Chev, Saginaw 4-speed, '38 Ford banjo rear end, open drive. I'm suspecting a sheared axle key that broke at an angle (so it really would be ratcheting). Suggestions for diagnosing this?
Jack rear end off ground and set stands under axle housings...fire up engine and put in gear...still make the noise? Try to isolate it by listening with a short broomstick held against your ear. If the sound is telescoping all over, remove the driveshaft [put an empty container under the output shaft to catch any 90 weight] and fire it up again. If it's the rear end, noise will be gone...if it's still there, it transmission noise. Last Saginaw I used trashed the reverse idler gear..made noise in all gears except 4th...especially noisy in 2nd gear. If that's the case, you'll need to completely disassemble the tranny to get the reverse idler out of the case. It's not as scary as you'd think...after removing the input gear and all the needle bearings from the front of the case, the main shaft with all it's gears comes out in one piece. Then the cluster gear comes out,[don't lose the needle bearings on both ends of it] revealing the reverse idler in the bottom. I have a dummy-shaft for a saginaw to help with re-assembly of the cluster gear if you wanna borrow it.. just pm me.
The Jalopy Journal
