Clunking when on/off the gas quickly

[sapote]

1. "If you roll your car back slowly while in neutral and you pull the ebrake to stop, does the rear end lift? I encountered what you felt and swapped a lower mile diff and problem gone. Definitely too much slop in the diff."

2. I realize that I am bumping an older thread but is this a good way to check? I say this because I have an ever so slight incline on my driveway that when I park the car rolls back and feels like the rear end lifts. I always thought this was just my parking brake needing adjustments or something.

1. this makes no sense, as the diff has nothing to do with rear end lift in this case. It lifted with ebrake pulled bc the car weight transferred and rotates the rear trailing arms (pushing the floor upward).
2. No, it is not a correct way to check.

[EthanolTurbo]

This is a fun issue to resolve...

[PSUEng]

My clunk on/off throttle was due to completely shot diff bushings. 82k miles all original; they just rotted away and I could move the diff by hand when mounted on the car.

[maw1124]

My clunk on/off throttle was due to completely shot diff bushings. 82k miles all original; they just rotted away and I could move the diff by hand when mounted on the car.

Same. And around the same time (85k ish miles, 15 ish years, mine is an '05). Given that I've done pinion seals twice on this car, I'm inclined to believe the diff is just too heavy for the bushings (necessarily so, sort of), and that this is a time, not mileage, fix.

maw

[01SG]

I had this issue and thought it was the diff going. Turns out my transmission mounts were totally sheared off. It was not possible to tell until I took all that stuff apart to change the drive shaft flex joint. My diff bushings aren't quite toasted enough at 147k to cause a clunk. Might be worth checking just because it's so cheap and easy compared to changing the diff/bushings.