Recently replaced the boots on my CV joints and am now experiencing a "clunk" sound during driving. Mainly upon rollout from a stop, and occasionally around turns, mostly at slower speeds. I've searched and searched and all I can find are pointers to CV joints being bad.
I'm not ruling them out, anything is possible, so I climbed under the car a little whole ago to have a look.
Car up on jackstands, no brake, tranny in neutral, I began spinning the wheels. They both sounded fine...no clunking. Climbed underneath and tried moving the axles from side to side and found that one the axle flanges on the transmission seemed to have a bit of freeplay to it. Actually, it was the passenger side flange, not the one shown in the pic below.
As I moved the axle from inboard and outboard, I could see the flange on the passenger side moving in and out approximately 1/8th of an inch, maybe a little less. What's more, the "clunk" it made seemed to be exactly the clunk I heard while driving.
I took the handle of a breakerbar and wedged it between the flange and the tranny and again moved the axle about and the sound was not there. I performed the same tests on the driver side but there was no issue there.
I guess my question is this: Aside from tightening down the bolt that seems to hold the flange on, what else could/should I be looking for with this flange? I've checked the cap head screws that attach the axle to the flange. Since I've only driven maybe 50 miles since installing them, they were still tight.
Randy