I replaced the Tailshaft Busing/Rear Seal/Housing Gasket last night on the AW71. Also did the front U-joint. Sounds like the disturbance of the driveline is bringing out the center support bearing whine, which is just one more thing to fix. (Felt a bit iffy when I had it out and looked at it). But now I am concerned about a new, loud, grinding noise when I put the tranny in reverse.

One thing that I noticed when I pulled the rear tranny housing off is that there was a lot of slop in the output shaft when the rear flange was removed. The tailshaft bushing looked ok, but I replaced it anyway. Slop in the shaft was significant (4-6mm laterally and about 2-3mm front-rear). When I finished the job and bolted everything back up, the tailshaft bushing and flange obviously corrected the lateral movement (it was tight and the flange never appeared to have any wear marks in it from either the seal or the bushing). There is still slop front-back -- about 2mm or so. This normal?

Then I drove it a bit last night and heard this crunching/grinding noise when I backed the car up. Seemed to do it almost every time -- but only briefly. It was as if a bushing were out of whack and something was wapping the bottom of the car. Today, when I put it in reverse, it made the same sound, but continued whether I moved the car or kept it in place under brake. I want to say that it sounds like it's coming from the front of the tranny, but can't tell. Am going to go investigate this more right now. Any suggestions? The fluid is topped off. Hopefully none of my old gasket fell into the tranny when I scraped it off. This is my first AW71 so every little noise is odd -- suffice to say I'd rather have an M45 or 46. Thx.