Savio

Hey Guys. So I have the angry sparrows “chirping” noise. I hear it only upon acceleration + under load. If I’m going 45 and even just slightly put pressure on the gas I’ll hear it or if I floor it (typically between 30-50mph). When I floor it, those birds get crazy and start chirping like they’re dying... If I put in in neutral while going those speeds it stops. I just removed my rear DS and replaced the 1 u joint towards the axle. And just greased the crap out of the double cardon section including the centering ball, and the slip yoke.. took it for a spin...And it’s still there... it may have cured the noise for like 5 minutes but then came back.

What advice can you guys give me. Or what direction can you point me in? Im not even sure if it is the drive shaft, I just figured I’d start there.. could it be the Tcase? Its driving me crazy. I may just take it to a shop and spend my money.

TRCM

that noise is a u-joint that is dry....need to find it

there are 7 u-joints on the vehicle

Savio

The rear drive shaft is completely greased up now. Possible it was just one of the front ones. I’ll remove my front DS and take it for a spin. Any other things it could possibly be in case it’s not the front DS either?

TRCM

each end of the front axle has a u-joint in the shaft....

Savio

Ok. I took off the front drive shaft. And 90% of the chirping is gone. The center ball is shot. Completely bone dry and nowhere to grease. The other 10% of the chirping is probably the rear that greased earlier is my guess

caged

dollars to doughnuts, it's your centering ball. i've replaced about 5 in my jeep lifetime.

Savio

I should probably just replace both huh. Are they pretty hard to do? I watched a few videos and some it looked very hard and another it looked easy. I don’t have a vice or press

TrailerTrash

It can be tricky but its not complicated. I highly recommend that you rent or buy a press kit.

I learned about the centering ball the hard way. I will never take a driveshaft apart and not replace that part ever again.

PatHenry

A vise AND press is what I needed to get my front DS apart.

Denny's driveshaft will sell you the Spicer rebuild kit, that's where I got mine. Another alternative is to just buy a whole new front driveshaft. They run roughly $200 for a generic one, but that's still going to be cheaper than paying someone to rebuild the shaft.

It wasn't too difficult.

Savio

Ok. I’ll attempt to do it myself. It’ll be good practice so I can do the rear. What symptoms/noises occur when the axle ujoints start to go? I also hav weird noises at 30mph. Like metal rubbing metal. Kinda sounds like my exhaust is touching something. But I only hear it between 30-45 mph. Maybe it is my exhaust lol

TrailerTrash

I think the rear driveshaft would be good practice before doing the front lol rear is much more simple

jordan96xj

Plenty of youtube material. Just search "jeep xj cardan joint" (doesn't even have to be XJ specific, and wrangler video will work as well). It is a little rubix-cubish-ish, but not as hard as people make it out to be. I rebuilt both of my drive shafts completely in a few hours (about 4) having never done it before, and that included getting 22 year old factory joints out of everything.