Well, this is turning into the summer of no-fun. From rusted side pipes - pending replacement with my new Gas-N pipes that are at the ceramic coater - to the on-going carb issue, I can now add a potential transmission issue.

This is the third summer my car has been on the road and it's covered just a tick over 8,100 miles so far. Last year, I began feeling a bit of a vibration in the seat of my pants - definitely a rear issue, as there was no feedback from the steering wheel to indicate it was a problem with the front wheels, steering, or suspension. Shortly after it began, I got a flat tire on the left rear and found a leaking shock. Well, I thought that was the issue, but since it was late in the season, I just drove it a couple more weeks, then parked it for winter. This spring, I replaced the bad shock and was surprised to find that the vibration continued.

Recently, I put it on the lift and re-did my usual nut and bolt check, paying close attention to the driveshaft and rear end. I also confirmed that the weight was still in place on the driveshaft. Next thoughts were to pull the driveshaft and have it rebalanced, as well as having the rear tires checked for out-of-round condition and balance. Also on the list is looking into getting hub-centric rings for the wheels to make sure it's not an issue resulting from mis-mounting due to the lug centric nature of the FFR wheels.

Well, while checking the driveshaft and U-joints, I discovered that the output shaft bushings/bearings seem to have worn out on my T5. There is a significant amount of movement of the slip yoke (not in-and-out, but up and down) and a slight knocking or clicking noise coming from inside the transmission when I move the front U-joint up and down. So, not sure if this is the source of my vibration or the result of some other imbalance that wore the bushings/bearings out prematurely.

The transmission was not rebuilt when I put my car together - it was a donor unit from a car with 120k miles. But, a friend who owns a transmission shop went through it and said it was in great shape and only needed a shim to take up some thrust and new gaskets.

So, I think I'm going to learn whether the transmission can be removed without pulling the engine..... sigh...... and then I'll have it completely rebuilt. I'll also continue to look at the other possible sources of the vibration, just to make sure that this wasn't caused by something else being out of whack.

Looks like my driving season was just shortened somewhat.