Hey guys, it's been a while. I'll give you a little story before I get to the root of my problem.

So my mom is a genius, and buys my sister a 96 sunfire 2.2 auto with 175K on it for a ridiculous price. My sister puts 5K on it and the motor locks up on her. I bought a 99 Sunfire from my cousin for $250 becuase it had no title, but the car runs and drives, so she's going to take it. The kid ebfore me was a total retard and wanted to sell the airbags, but instad of unbolting them, he actually cut them out, with a kinfe, and butchered them. So i swap the airbags in from the blwon up car and now everything is fine, I drive it around to see if anything is wrong and ti seems fine. So i drive it over to a buddies house to clean it up, and once I leave his drive I notice something feels odd. Now when I go around corners or turn the wheel even a hair with my foot on the gas, i get loud clicks/pops and the car jerks. My first thoguht was "Ok, the car sat for a while, and this sounds like a CV joint to me." So i limp it home and park it for 2 days. I come back thinking it's the dv, so I thought I could move the car in a straight line into my uncles garage. No dice. Car just makes a griding noise and doesnt move.

Shifts through all the gears fine.
Clutch engages and disengages fine.
The griding noise will speed up with RPM's

I tried looking under the car while it was running but couldnt see much. No fluid leaks or anything.

Anyone have an idea what this could be or what it sounds like?

It's stuck in my uncles hard and he has nasty unpaved uphill drives way, so I havent been able to jack it up and pull the axles yet.

I've searched and couldnt find anything quite liek this. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Does it make the noise if you rev it up while in neutal, what about with the clutch pressed in? Sounds to me like a bad differential.

No noise with clutch pressed in or in neutral, only when the clutch is engaged

steve white wrote:Does it make the noise if you rev it up while in neutal, what about with the clutch pressed in? Sounds to me like a bad differential.

same thing...sounds like diff problems

Alright glad to get to the bottom of that. What's cheapest way out? Buy a new tranny? Or rebuild this one?

cheapest way out is to figure out the problem first....could be anything man....we just gave you what WE think it is....so start by figuringout the problem first...

Ok, ill pull the axles out tonight, what am I looking for? Or if something is wrong I will know it when I see it?

Update:

I couldn't pull the axles because I lost the socket for the large bolt on the end of that axle, but i found this interesting.

When I drained the tranny, there seemed to be plenty of fluid and it was in quite good shape, with not a single sign of any metal flakes or debris in it. I would think if the diff was shot there would be some metal flakes or whatnot.

Jack the front end up and try spinning the wheels. Leave it in gear. The opposite wheel should turn the opposite direction. If it isn't smooth or refuses to turn, then chances are it is the diff spider gears. When those gears break, it doesn't always leave flakes....it leaves chunks.