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Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the forums and new to working on these cars (although I have a lot of experience working on cars in general, namely DSMs). My new-to-me 98 manual LX began making a slightly odd noise about a week ago and it has me a little concerned.

The noise seems to be coming from the lower engine or under the engine (possibly suspension or transmission related). The noise itself sounds like a mix of a creak and a click at the same time. It only happen when taking off in first gear, and I can sometimes hear it while taking letting the clutch out in second. It doesn't seem to be related to turning at all, and it never happens in reverse, only first and occasionally after letting the clutch out after shifting to second.

I've only had the car for about 4 months and it has a pretty good amount on the clock (255k). Since I purchased the car I've done all normal tune-up related work, timing belt, water pump, all belts, distributor, ignition switch, and a few others.

My hope is that this may just be a body or suspension creak/click, but I want to get a couple of opinions to help steer me in the right direction.

I jacked the front of the car up and wiggled a couple of things underneath to see if I could spot and glaring issues, but nothing caught my attention. The only thing I noticed was a noise coming from the differential? (transmission) when turning the wheels, but the noise would only occur when changing the direction of turning the wheels, never when the wheels remained turning in the same direction.

I'm not sure if this is normal, and if not, if it might be tied to the noise I've been hearing. The car also needs new struts pretty bad, so there might be some other suspension issues that could be causing this as well.

Here is the link to a video of the transmission noise when changing direction of the wheels spinning (note: the noise isn't nearly this loud in person, I thing being confined to the engine bay made it sound worse).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1xvl8oqadt...Click.mp4?dl=0

If anyone has any insight or suggestions I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

-Phil

 
Rep Power: 518

Normal, open diff spiders and side gears have an amount of normal free play or slop between the teeth. The opposite wheel is turning the opposite direction.


IDK what your complaint noise is though. Probably has to do with the engine rocking on its rubber mounts? Check all motor mounts and stuff?