Reply to "Pre-LMC visit to Italy"

A little follow up, and a question. The bearing sound that annoyed me most of the trip, today I wanted to find out, was it gearbox or rear diff? Got the car on the lift, idled in drive, yes the sound was clearly audible. Then I took of the drive shaft, tried again, noise gone. So rear diff problem I concluded. Which is a shame as a new rear diff from UK (Jag stuff) costs £2300

But then I noticed the yoke was like I haven't seen before, totally dry and with grooves around it. So took the yoke off the drive shaft, installed and tested. Noise still gone. So for sure noise is from rear end.

But...is the yoke supposed to be dry? All GM trans I've had experience with, when you took the yoke out, some red oil would drip out. So do I also have a trans problem, anybody know? I know I need a new yoke because of the grooving.

One more issue, since the drive shaft translates a US Ford dimension to a Jag dimension, the rear ujoint has different dimension on the the two axis', wonder where I get a new one.

Yes, actually driving your classic car costs in the maintenance/repair department, but why else would you want to have it?