can an axle only act up part of the time?

[Timmay2]

I have some hard clunking from the front right of the car once in awhile now.. but only for a short time.. i drove maybe 4 miles home today from sears and only about 10 seconds of the time it made a real hard clunking... is lowers in intensity when the clutch is pushed in, so it has me thinking its the passenger side axle..

Can they be stupid like this ? Or is something else to be of blame?

[BLUEBALL]

yes and yes.
sometimes the spring in the inner joint will break or come out of position and start getting between housing and tripod. can be an intermittant occurance,but ultimately will cause joint failure. also possible have other probs

[Timmay2]

Hm.. I think i will swap it out tomarro and make another trip to autozone.. hopefully nothing else is causing the problem... this axle had me a little worried though because the inner joint that goes into the intermediate shaft felt a little rough like in and out when i first got the axle..

Hopefully ill get a better one :-d

[rpeatt]

be careful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!! POSSIBLE BAD NEWS AHEAD

I thought it was the axle too. I even replaced it thinking it was broken. It was a loud clunking when the car was in motion, but when the clutch pedal was pressed, it pretty much went away. Guess what the problem was? INPUT SHAFT BEARING! the bearing scored the shaft of my a-555 and i needed a new tranny. I hope this isnt your problem, but it sounds similar.

[Timmay2]

I managed to get the axle out after fighting the ****ed thing.. but it was seperated, the tripod closest to the tranny was popping in and out..

stupid a- autozone axles.. i took it back twice already and each time got a different axle (surprise surprise) one too long, one right length it appears however wont fit in the hub.. sigh... heading back for a 3rd time.. 5-6 hours and counting so far tonight.. fdgsdfgdy7us xyj7u