XJOZ

Cant seem to find any posts that directly talk to this noise I'm getting.

This morning backing out of the garage there were three distinct noises that sounded like something binding then releasing. Upon medium acceleration it happens. It has been doing it at other times under load. I just did the ball joints and u joints upfront as they were toast.

Im stuck in 4wd high. The sound seems to come from the left front only but hard to confirm that.

Any ideas?

PatHenry

Were the u-joints nice and smooth after installation?

It sounds like one of the needle bearings fell over and is trapped under the cap on the side that seems off.

I had a shop do my rear driveshaft u-joints and when I got the drive-shaft back it was tight.. I foolishly assumed the shop (that I once trusted) wouldn't hand me back the driveshaft if the u-joints were installed incorrectly and it was just "new u-joint tightness". I was very very wrong.

I put the driveshaft in and took the Jeep for a test drive down the street and back. I got a couple hundred feet down the road and things didn't feel right. I started to turn around and felt a god-awful binding and 15 seconds later a loud bang. I jumped out and noticed my driveshaft on the road under my jeep. The new kid at the shop had clearly gotten a needle bearing under the cap or something.
I put new u-joints in the shaft myself, easy-outed the axle strap bolt that had sheared off and re-installed the driveshaft and it's been driving smooth ever since.

XJOZ

I was having the needle fall down when I put it together. Thought I'd got it all flush when I fit it but I'll double check that. Ty

PatHenry

Those needle bearings can be a real PITA...

I found that taking a 'bloop' of grease (like a fingertip's worth) and adding it to the caps, then pushing the needle bearings up against the edge all around worked really well to hold the bearings in place when assembling.
Also pushing the first cap deeper, so you can get the + part into the cap enough to keep the first cap's bearing in, then pressing the second cap on and then centering the joint worked for me.

Edit - The real key above all else was making sure the joints were smooth and not binding once everything was back together. As you might expect, when I did them on the driveshaft after my binding incident, I was super paranoid about making sure the joint was installed correctly.

TwistedWrench

Check your track bar at the bracket, and the bracket itself.

Also 4H is meant for loose surfaces(ie: off road). Whatever the cause of it being stuck in 4H, your gonna want to fix that.

msumms

the wheels will bind in true 4wd. during turns especially and on high traction surfaces

jordan96xj

Until you get the 4H problem fixed, remove your front drive shaft. You should do this anyway, but the bonus is that if the problem you posted about goes away, you'll know that it likely just the normal result of trying to make turns in 4H on hard/dry surfaces (really hard on the drive line, because the front axle and rear axle can not turn at different speeds, and during a turn they want to....badly).

PatHenry

I get the feeling that when the O.P. says he's "stuck in 4wd" that this is a result of the binding. In other words, due to the binding he's getting the front wheels locking (either due to excess pressure on the axles or the axles binding simulating a 4wd feel.) I could be wrong, but that's what I gathered from it. In other, other words, I don't think this is a case of the O.P. not being familiar with how part-time 4wd works. Additionally, even if the Jeep is in 4wd, one shouldn't feel a binding or locking when pulling straight out of the garage, it would obviously only give a locking/binding feel when turning the front wheels on a high friction surface.

The fact that this occurred immediately after replacing the ball joints and u-joints seems to me to almost certainly point to a u-joint issue. A bad "out of the box" ball joint might cause a problem with steering (and unlike sensors and the such, I haven't seen many reports of this), but is extremely unlikely to cause forward/reverse driveability issues. One or both of the u-joints binding however would definitely be a probable cause for the described behavior.

O.P. - Jordan's advice re: removing the driveshaft would be an excellent "quick" diagnostic step. If nothing else, it's easier than pulling the wheels apart to get the axles out. If you remove the front driveshaft and you're still getting binding, you know it's a problem with the u-joints or internal differential gears. Since you did not have a problem with the diff gears previously and didn't touch them directly, the axles are suspect #1.