Richard ,

I will take a guess and say that your 55 "Bird has an air cooled torque convertor .Had the same trouble with a FOM in my Hot Rod .Turned out the "ears "on flex plate had broken ,causing a terrible sound .You can remove the dust cover on the bottom of the bellhousing and check them .My next guess is ,it would be just as easy to pull the motor & box to fix the problem . Someone else may chime in and tell me it can be done in chassis ????? Thunderbirds are not my speciallity ,but I'm thinking of that massive X member . Not a lot of room on there ??

Lon

yblocksdownunder

My 55 bird (Fordo) has developed a fairly loud tapping noise which i initially thought (hoped!) might be the exhaust banging against the chassis member but find that unfortunately it's not. It seems to be coming from the rear of the engine area and is noticeable on idle and pulling away particularly if on incline. The engine was reputedly rebuilt not long before I bought it and runs well. Reading through the forum archives I read that a cracked flex plate could be the issue. Is there an easy way to check this? And how big a job would it be to rectify?

Many thanks

Richard