[DeTomaso] lessons learned

[boyd casey]

I had detected an unusual noise coming from the rear of my car.  (only when
moving) It sounded like it was coming from the CV joints ( I replaced the
half shafts) I had a torn boot so I replaced both the CV joints on that
side. The noise was still there but it was intermittent. I noticed the
joint between my bigbore headers and my mind train mufflers was loose so I
replaced the donut muffler gasget. ( that wasn't the problem but the car
did sound much better with the new donut gasket. ) Then I thought my Cv
shaft might be contacting my header /muffler when I hit a bump , so I
rehung the muffler. I was quickly running out of ideas when I realized that
the old  Stainless grease guards that coverd the half shaft u joints were
still in place even though they no longer were needed I though they added a
little "Bling". Well one of the mounting tabs was broken and on bumps or
bad roads the grease guard hit the cv shaft and made a terrible sound.  So
once again I have learned the same expensive lesson , don't "fix" things
until you actually determine whats broken!
Boyd