I disconnected the drive shaft to work on the rear end today. Later I started the car up with the tranny in neutral and heard the drive shaft banging around. I pushed in the clutch and it stopped spinning. Does the tranny need a slight load on it not to spin when in neutral?

 

Yeah without a load, sometimes it will do that.

 

Cool beans thanks for the letting me know.

 

I'm reviving this thread as I seem to be having a similar problem. I haven't had a chance to climb under the car and look to see if the yolk plugging the transmission shaft is turning, but my speedometer seems to be accelerating while in neutral and the clutch engaged. Once the clutch is disengaged, the speedometer drops to zero. I thought it was a wiring issue and posted about it in the electrical forum, but didn't think to look under the car and see if something is physically turning while in neutral. I know the input shaft would move, but didn't think anything else in the transmission would be moving while the car is in neutral. The T56 gears are not physically touching when in neutral but is something else touching that could potentially spin the output shaft if there is no other load on it? I ripped out the rear end and driveshaft for a new fuel pump and was testing to make sure the fuel pump worked before I put the rear back in when I noticed the speedometer moving the up the more the car revved when in neutral.

 

That something is the input shaft touching the main shaft. Without a load on the main shaft there's probably enough friction there to cause the whole assembly to spin.

 

Thanks for the quick response Brian. I will be using my camera to see if the assembly is physically spinning later tonight to verify and will report back with my findings.

 

Just got out there and took a look. Sure enough, even in neutral with only a driveshaft yoke in the transmission, it was spinning away.

Note to anyone looking in the future and scratching their heads, if there is no driveshaft attached to the T56, the mainshaft may spin in neutral.