I had been noticing a "clunk" from take off or rough shifting <seems to be between front and back seats> I thought for sure it was the tranny mounts, but that wasnt it either. My mechanic got under there finally and found that my torque arm was "twisted" or bent. He also remarked that there was a noticble spot on the driveshaft where it was hitting, but also said the DS was in no trouble. What could have caused this? and for the newbie question.....what exactly does a torque arm do??

 

Without the torque arm, the rear axle assembly is free to rotate around the LCA mounting points. The torque arm keeps the pinion shaft from rotating upwards, in reaction to the torque load at the tires. Bending the arm would indicate it was carrying more torque than it was designed for. Your mods don't seem to indicate that sort of HP levels. Have you run the car on slicks with high rpm clutch dumps?

 

Well I recently intalled nitto's myself...but the clunk was there when i bought the car...checked tranny mounts...they are fine, changed a bad motor mount under warrenty. So a high RPM clutch dump isn't out of the question, my mechanic said this car has had a hard life looking at the torque arm. I also have a leaky rear end too....don't know if that has anything to do with it. thanx for the help

 

I had the same problem with mine. I bought it used and babied it. One day I put some power on it and the car literally started bouncing in the rear end like I had a terrible hydrolics on it. I thought I had a shock going out. Turns out the torque was torn on the top and starting to tear at the bottom. I got a used one for about $60 at a salvage yard. Might look into that before spending 230 for a oem one.

 

Bent torque arm is not a good sign. The rear pinion leak is fairly common so probably not related.

 

i also had the same problem.... i have a 3.4 camaro and i dumped it and tore my torque arm a couple times.... but i have 3.73 gears and a LSD........... just replace it.......... EDLEBROCK makes a torque arm thats nice and inexpensive around $175..........

 

I had the same problem after I got my 4.10 gears installed. After a couple of runs at the track I twisted the torque arm. It sounded like a loud clunk everytime I went over a bump at slow speeds and if I got on it really hard it sounded worse. Definitly get the poly mount instead of the rubber mount.


Mike

 

There must be some defective torque arms out there. I was spraying 175 shot with slicks, tranny mount and rearend blew but torque arm was fine.

 

I put a Vortech kit on my 97WS6 about a year ago. I opened it up the other day and as soon as the boost came up I twisted the stock TA right off the rear end near the area it bolts up. What a noise! I thought I blew the rear.
I ordered the adjustable Edlebrock TA from Summit. I know some folks had problems with these about a year ago so I was a little worried. Most of the trouble they were having seemed to be from a bad weld at the same spot on most of them. Well I'm glad to say the TA is installed and I'm very pleased with it. Edlebrock seems to have cured their weld problems. It also comes with a new Poly bushing for the TA's tranny mount.
After installing it I went out and ran it 20 miles and re-torqued all the bolts.
That was Monday. I put a few hundred miles on it since then and went through hard corners and used the s/c a lot. It's keeping the the rear end positioned better than the stock one did and has not had any problem with the welds giving out.
So far so good. Now I'll probably blow the rear or twist the driveshaft.