Loud Noises!!!!

[thegreenmachine]

Hey everybody.

As you guys may or may not know, I off road my van on a regular basis. Now, not like, jumping it or extreme hill climbing. Just driving at the river. Sand a rock and mud. Nothing crazy.

Lately I can hear the front diff engage, almost sounds like speaker feedback. But defiantly diff. Only happens if I try to give it too much gas and make the rear spin.

Also in the hiway today it i felt that vibration I posted about in another thread. Way more violent and the van took a nose dive as it happened I hit the breaks to slow down but by the time I reacted it was gone. Really scary.

So long story short, is my front diff bad or is it t case related?

I my have to drive 600miles soon as my next site may be in Alberta. Don't need a catastrophic failure on the mountain roads.

[Bread Van]

I don't know anything about the speaker type whine you get when the front diff engages. The vibration and front end dive could just be some crap (sand, pebbles, gritty mud) that was stuck in your brakes. If there are little pebbles embedded in the pads from your excursions one could work loose and cause what you experienced on the highway. If you have time I'd remove each caliper and inspect/clean the pads. Lube the guide pins while you are there.

edit: You also could have bearings going bad from your excursions. Maybe that would explain diff whine too...as in those bearing cause more problems when they get more loaded from front drivetrain engagement. Just an idea

[thegreenmachine]

thanks for the info.

I did drive through some really loose gravel at the river a couple times. had to though. the unfortunate thing was the fact that some idiot in a 2wd truck got stuck in that spot before I tried to plow through, managed to get a rock stuck somewhere in the rim/breaks. I put it into reverse and I heard the stone pop out of wherever it was, problem solved?

I have been wondering if my u-joints were going bad so lately I've been driving around with the radio off trying to hear for growl.
it took a couple days of closely listening to determine what was tire noise, and what wasn't. sure enough I can hear it growling at certain speeds.

Going to check the breaks today, and hopefully replace the 3 u-joints and breaks next week sometime. gotta pick up some pinion shims, and maybe start mocking up my skid plate and traction bars outta card-board....

what I really need to do is start a thread to keep track of my ideas and list my needed replacement parts....