randyandtina

There is a clunking noise when car is in park or neutral. Drives fine. But when I stop it feels like the brake locks up and there is a loud thump. I put the car on jack stands and put it in gear with the hood up and put it in drive. When my wife pushed the brake it seemed like the whole motor twisted. Thanks

Knifeblade_03

don't quite understand how the "clunk" happens here. Does the noise sound when you shift the gears? Is the RPM high?

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Attack Pig {aka Tam}

**Disclaimer** An honest opinion is not always appreciated by the recipient.

skibum1111

It sounds like its either a bad motor mount, or a bad torque strut, depending on which motor you have. The 2.3's all have a torque strut on the drivers side, looks like a sideways motor mount, goes from the transmission to the frame rail, and they have been an issue on some cars, especially if the splash shields are missing or damaged. Either way, its a serious issue to get repaired as it is possible to do serious damage to the structural points of the car where the motor and transmission are mated to the body of the car. I have seen a few in the yards where the torque strut bolt snapped off from the motor and trans bouncing around, and its not pretty...

randyandtina

We bought and tried the strut mount and it still did it. We took it to a transmission shop and he says its the torque converter locking up. So I think he might have to fix it from here. Not sure how big a job that is.
Thanks

skibum1111

Getting the transmisison out can be a real pain. You need an engine support for the top, and you have to take the driver's side suspension out of the car, when i did my clutch it took 2 of us 11 hours to get the transmission out and in, and about 10 minutes to physically change the clutch disk, pressure plate and slave cylinder... Once the transmission is out changing the torque converter is easy...