Rear End Noise Help

It sounds to me like the differential carrier bearings are shot. The rear end in my 93 LX 4-cyl was making similar noises (included the part about sweeping right hand turns). My car had about 115,000 miles when the noise was getting bad and I fixed it. I'm not sure how much experience you have with rear ends, but it really isn't that hard to fix (I had a local machine shop press new bearings onto the carrier). The new bearings costed about $70 including having them pressed on. The trickier part is reseting the ring/pinion backlash, which requires a dial indicator and magnetic base. I was lucky with mine because I reinstalled the shims in the original places and the backlash was perfectly within spec.

The first thing you should check is the backlash, which will be thrown way out of spec with bad carrier bearings. Also check both sides of the gear teeth to see if any bad wear is occuring. With my car, I was honestly shocked because the gear teeth looked brand new.

You'll be able to tell if your bearings are toast by looking at them, as on mine the outer races had A LOT of abrasive wear.

Hope this helps!