I'm not familiar with the miata driveline (yet). I just noticed I have what seems to me like a lot of freeplay in the diff (RX7 clutch type). Maybe 1" of travel at the tire tread (in rotation) before the driveshaft moves. On top of that, with the car in gear I can keep moving the tire and turn the tail end of the driveshaft maybe an 1/8" back and forth without any resistance.

Are both of these normal? Thoughts?

 

Every Miata I've worked on and any combination of torsen in my car seems to have about that amount of play. Nothing has broken yet, and my diff isn't exactly noisy.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Good to know I only have a dozen other things to worry about, and not driveline lash

 

I've always thought mine was awful bouncy, here's a video I took of the slop...

Drive Shaft | Facebook

70,000 miles, KAAZ diff came installed in the car and everything else is stock.

 

"permissions error"

 

Oops, here we go...

Miata driveshaft slop *NSFW (language)* - YouTube

 

watched it with the sound off, but travel wise, mine is about like that. maybe a hair less.

 

mine has done that before, but then another day when it was on the lift i tried again and it had much less then before. OBX diff. some times it's clunky and some times not. no issues so far after 10k abusive miles.

 

Mine is the some here. When I first notice it I got worried So I bought a low miliage diff but never installed it. So far running it three years with no issues, every time I do an oil change I check if there's more play.

 

I notice the play in mine when I'm driving in traffic. It makes it hard to be smooth in stop-and-go crap. I had been wondering if it was normal.