78 k20 play in front axle?

[tigwelder]

noticed clunking noise when shifting from drive to reverse.watched u joint on  front trying to find where noise was coming from.it has a lot of play in it.would it be ring and pinion?

[beastie_3]

does the driveshaft have play when in park? What T case do you have? 205? 203? Could just be a bad u joint.

[1979C20]

My brothers 2wd th350 clunks from D to R. Idk if the fact that its a 2wd helps you in narrowing your search?

[Captkaos]

Is the yoke moving a lot?  or is there slop in the u-joint?

[tigwelder]

the yoke is moving alot. a little less then a 1/4 turn.

[ehjorten]

Sounds like NP203 chain slop!  If you have a full-time transfer case or a part-time converted transfer case then you have the NP203 and it is most likely chain stretch inside the transfer case.  The design of the transfer case doesn't incorporate any slack adjustment or tensioning.  Mile Marker use to sell a chain saver kit that allowed you to take some of the slack out of the chain, but they don't seem to sell it anymore.  With all of that said...there are plenty of guys out there running NP203s with chain slop and they have been doing that for years!

[Irish_Alley]

might be the cv part of the driveshaft

[tigwelder]

thanks for all replies. going to take a closer look at everthing.