I have an 85 with 114,000 miles on it. It runs fine since I recently solved a vacuum leak problem. However, when I shift to drive, it gives a minor "clunk" as opposed to a clean smooth tansition to drive. Any ideas what that could be? No other trani problems that I notice! It idles pretty stable at about 600. Thanx in advance.
Could be U joints or possibly backlash in the rear end. Backlash is slop between the pinion and ring gears. What you can do is get the car up on jack stands safely, and go underneath and turn the drive shaft and check for play in the u joints. Also you will need to do this with the half shafts, sometimes called to axle shafts.
To check for backlash in the differential, I believe you can turn your drive shaft and watch the axle shafts and determine if you have any play that way.
First thing I'd check would be the transmission mount. Stock it's rubber and tends to get weak and break pretty often. If it's bad, get a urethane replacement, they're not much more $ and last a lot longer.
You have slack in the posi unit. It comes from age. Leave it alone unless you want to rebuild the rear end. Last time I remember @$850.
Just drive it unless you are going to the drag strip.
If there was that much backlash in the ring and pinion you would be on the side of the road by now. U-joints in the drive shaft were like new when I took them out of my 87 at over 200k miles. If you have a vibration problem with the clunk you may have a u-joint problem but it's in a half shaft 9/10 of the time.
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