anyone have exp with their ds coming out of the tail housing? basically, i maxed my car out at 165+ and sustained that speed for a little bit. next thing i knew i noticed a light fog behind my car. it turned out the be ATF fluid all over my unercarriage.

the car drives but it feels like driving on a flat tire. i busted the seal where the ds enters the tail housing and i lost a lot of fluid.

has anyone experienced this before? what should i do now?

 

The drive shaft shouldn't come out unless you trash a u joint. There isn't enough movement to cause it to pull out that far,

How much clearance does the drive shaft yoke have to the seal?

It should be about 1" with car at ride hight. I would check the output shaft on the tail housing to make sure it isn't damaged, has run out or any play in it.

 

here is a pic of the problem

 

If you have the stock torque arm, check to see if it is bending like this one. If the rearend angles back far enough, the driveshaft can fall out. Bob



You can tell in this picture that the torque arm is bending, and the rear-end is rotated upward. This 50+ in age customer was very lucky to have been able to limp his car over to our shop before this torque arm broke into two pieces. Luckily he does not do any hard take-offs in his Camaro, as it is very common for the torque arm to break and take out the driveshaft with it! I have seen torque arm failures that have produced broken driveshafts, and normally it leaves puncture wounds in the sheetmetal of the floor !





As a result of the torque arm nearly breaking in two, the rear-end tilted upward and this customer very nearly lost his rear coil springs!