So as mentioned in the title, anytime I shift from park to drive or drive to reverse I get this loud banging or clanking noise from under the car. I assumed this was bad U-joints. However, I put a video camera under the car to record the joints as I shifted into and out of gears but the joints did not have any play in them.

I have been searching this forum like crazy and I have come across people with the same symptoms that ended up having a bad rear pinion bearing.

I am also getting a vibration from 65 MPH and higher. Could these all be signs of a bad rear pinion?

 

It's either your rear diff due to loss of pinion preload (happened to me before) or your transmission's got a problem.

You can check your pinion preload by getting under your car, removing the driveshaft and trying to move the pinion yoke up/down/left/right. If it's loose in any direction and/or has very little drag, it's your pinion. This will probably mean you'll have to get your diff rebuilt.

 

Well that sucks to hear. I actually just had the rear end replaced due to a side impact from a car running a red light 2 years ago. It bent the axle so they had to replace it. I am going through the bills and reciepts now that came after it was all repaired to see if they replaced the pinion bearing. It looks like all they did was ordered a new axle housing from Toyota and then transplanted all of the original guts of the axle into that new housing.

I do show in the receipts that they did order a bearing but after calling the Toyota dealership and giving them the P/N it was not a pinion bearing.

Can I not just replace the bearing causing the vibration?

I will check this preload and see if that could be the issue.

Thanks for the advice.

 

The slamming noise is coming from the back for sure. I just lifted it up on jacks and had someone shift in and out of drive and reverse. I will take off the drive shaft now and see what I can see.

 

The noise was not coming from the back as I was almost sure of, it was a bad torque converter. I tore the rear end apart and couldn't find any bad bearings or even any sign of problems. Preload on the pinion bearing was good, lash was set fine and I found no signs of premature wear. Along with this banging sound I was getting a vibration around 65 MPH and up. Just wanted to add a reply to let anyone know searching out this problem what these symptoms may imply.