Since "my guy" is remodeling a house for his son it'll be ages until he would have time to do this for me SO I enlisted the help of a 16 year old with a good back to help me get this done.
The problem was as I suspected but not necessarily why.
Upon driving out the u-joint pin I noticed one end wasn't very peened over and came out pretty easily.......in TWO pieces.
It's a miracle it stayed put.
Anyway, between that the worn bore and face on the upper drive shaft bushing it's crystal clear what was causing the whine.
Luckily the pinion and differential gears look like new!....... .......and fiddling with thrust washers won't be necessary.......that was done somewhere along the line.
I didn't do this same job on the '20 Coupe I had so I was surprised to see babbitt on the flange end of the bushing.
I heated the hell out of it to make the bronze relax so I could get it out without using dynamite.
The drive shaft surfaces are fine and I won't even have to fiddle with the flange as the joint is going to fit like glove the way just as everything is.......another bonus.
I'll be "On the Road Again"sometime tomorrow........
I doubt the drive shaft bushing would make any noise no matter how worn out. I think you need to keep looking.
Sounds like the face of the bushing is worn, allowing the drive shaft and pinion gear to move rearward, causing the ring/pinion gear clearance to be too tight, which caused the whining. Might look at either replacing the bushing or using the pinion bearing replacement kit from Fun Projects. Worked great for me. Just my two cents.
A big endorsement from me on the pinion bearing kit from Fun Projects! That is DEFINITELY the way to go. Super easy installation and makes the driveshaft part of rebuilding the rear end very painless. Also, even if for some crazy reason you have trouble or can't figure something out, John (the main man at Fun Projects) is extremely helpful and glad to talk to you on the phone. I've even seen where other's have posted that he just stayed on the phone with them and walked them through the whole process.
Nope.......Dave is 100% correct........luckily.
Same problem I had with the '20 Coupe.
Dave is right. The only thing that causes a rear end to wine is not having enough ring gear and pinion clearance. Setting ring gear and pinion clearance is critical. You need about 0.010 in clearance for 360 degrees of rotation. You also need to make sure that you have no drive shaft end play and that the differential assembly cannot move from side to side within the housings . All of these factors are critical in maintaining the proper ring gear and pinion clearance.