[James Scott]

Evidently, when the muffler man welded in the rear cat, he pushed in the sheet metal cover under the exhaust pipes, protecting the driveshaft. So, when I would turn the steering sharp to either side and accelerate (eliciting the bad axle click noise), it would evidently cause some engine/AT movement slightly.. . CAUSING THE DRIVESHAFT TO HIT THE SHEET METAL COVER .. . making my SVX sound like an old delapidated jalopy with a bad muffler.. . hanging down loose.. . and banging back and forth into various other metal parts [like banging a large screwdriver on a metal trashcan lid]!

Is there a way to diagnose the driveshaft (propellor shaft) center bearing? It didn't seem bad. When I grabbed the shaft and shook it.. . It only seemed to wiggle about 3/16 to 14 inch! The reason I wonder about the center bearing is that when the shaft would hit the sheet metal.. . It would sound like something banging repeatedly (rather than just scraping smoothly).. . like maybe the bearing was "floppy".. ??

Oh..BTW.. . I bent the sheet metal out slightly away from the driveshaft.. . SO, it doesn't make that dreadful noise anymore (but I still get the front axle clicking that I brought up in another thread.. . Waiting for my Chinese axle coming from Mike). I can't tell which front axle is bad, since it makes noise while accelerating/turning in either direction???

Thanks! Jim