I have had driveshaft clanging from my syncro, especially when in reverse.

It turns out that my center driveshaft protection rails had been bashed
upwards, thus effectively shortening them.

This effectively shortened the vehicle, and put stress upon the driveshaft.

Theoretically, I could have loosened the mounting bolts on the front diff
and wiggled it the way it says to do in Bentley, which theoretically would
have allowed the drivetrain to resettle to the new geometry. And indeed
this I did. But first I pulled the driveshaft proection rails back down
strait, and upon a suggestion from Dennis Haynes, put angle iron from them
up to the vehicle body to prevent them from ever again being pushed upwards
by rough driving and smashing down on rocks.

After these procedures, the driveshaft stopped clanging.

So if your driveshaft clangs, you might try to loosen the bolts holding the
front diff and wiggle it around and then retighten.

________________________________________________________
Derek Drew                              New York, NY & Washington, DC
drew@interport.net
'90 Syncro Westfalia...
...seen off-road at http://www.tiu.net/~des/vw/drew/index.html
         Note: most valuable Vanagon site on the planet (for owners) is
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