The bearings may already be shot. Do more research on Axle Nut here. Tightening only works if you catch it early or before symptoms. All the signs of a worn bearing.....

Utah

 

When you do the axle nut make sure you lube up the face of the nut, NOT the threads! Me and my buddy did both our cars, his was having noises from the rear and it fixed his right up!

 

Wish I could say the same for me too! But in this case it's not and to answer your question Sceanzo, Yes it does increase. I've also just noticed that its starting to get more frequent as before it was just from a dead stop through 2 gear, now I can hear it in 1-4, 5 and 6 sometimes right after I shift I give it a little gas and you can hear rapid clicking due to power transfer.

 

Rapid clicking during power transfer may be a bad driveshaft (the one that runs from the trans to the dif) I have seen and heard it first hand with the s2k, so this is not a guess

Do this:

put the car in the air SAFELY and check the shaft. Front to back movement of the shaft is normal. It will float front to back.

However, if you can feel ANY up and down play at all, or are able to make the shaft make any type of noise while wiggling up and down, the CV cage is split inside one of the ends.

This usually happens during a clutch install. if one end of the shaft is forced, it has major leverage on the cage and breaks it.

 

After reading your description again, it REALLY sounds like a split driveshaft cage.

I had a car here two weeks ago with a bad shaft and his symptoms were 100% identical to the the ones in your description.

AXLE nut noise is usually always limited to single clicks, and low speed rotation multiple clicking noise even when coasting. Usually no symptoms can beo found over 8 mph or so.

 

Billman. I just checked my driveshaft after reading your post and it does have some up and down play.

Would I need the whole propeller shaft or could I get away with replacing one of the ends?

 

I also checked my driveshaft and it has little to no play at all when trying to move up and down. It does however move back and forth, and rotate to a minimum. It also has a clicking when moving back and forth and sounds like its broken inside. I'll try to get a video up.

 

Remember billman said it shouldn't have ANY up and down play. You couldn't see mine moving up and down, but i could feel it in my hands, it also made a clicking sound when i did it. I already sourced a new driveshaft. Waiting for it to get here so I can install it and see if it remedied the problem.

He said moving back and forth is normal. As it is a "floating" shaft.

 

*Update* after all this inspecting I drove the car for 2 days and no more clicking..? I guess rotating and moving it back and forth must have fixed whatever was making it click. All the symptoms I reported are all gone, even the scrathing at 65 mpg and clicking in forward and reverse. I'll report back if I do get anymore clicking.

 

Well I put my driveshaft in. Fixed a lot of the clunking between gears as well as some vibration.

I still have a "revolving" noise as well as some heavy load vibration. I need to put my driver side axle in and see what happens. I put in an oem axle on the passenger side and it cut noise/vibration in half. So hopefully it will be the driverside to blame for the rest.