briansgarage

Ok,
I want to see what you all think, I have a good idea. But want a second opinon.
I have a grinding noise in my front end passenger side. Sounds like a brake dragging but isn't. I took off the calipers, and rotor, and spinning it free hand, and the grinding noise is NOT coming from the wheel/hub bearing. It as coming from behind the knuckle, in the shaft..
What do you all think is going on here. It's a metal to metal dry rub sounds. Not a squeal but a grind. Sounds like it is coming from the axle behind the knuckle..
What says you?

kissthis66

i have the same kind of issue going on. i read up and it said it may be low transmission fluid levels. im going to the store tonight to top off mine. hopefully this solves the issue. either way im keepin tabs on this thread as well .

opie1988

check your axle U-joint.. If you have any wallow in your steering while turning, that could be your culprit

kissthis66

Brian - I just pulled the plugs on both my tranny and transfer, both are topped off so thats not it so dont waste ur time there =/

i did however jack up the front passenger side and push on the tire and it did have what seemed to be a lot of play back in forth opposed to the driver side that was soundly stiff...

Brian - is this what your experiencing by chance as well?

Opie - What did you mean by "any wallow in your steering while turning"

kissthis66

did some reading up on this and its the hub bearing assembly that's the cause of this. if its not fixed soon the wheel can lock up according to one tech. basically the noise will continue to get worse and worse til it locks up.

rockauto.com starts off at $38 for the generic and up for the more name brand. im going to be putting in an order tonight for mine. autozone has them too for like $80+

briansgarage

The U joint seems fine. No wiggle that I can see, although couldn't hurt to replace it @182k miles. The sound is actually coming from behind that, sounds like it is in the front of the axle, right behind the plastic dust cover.
Could it be something with the axle shaft?

This is what I thought was going on too. At first thought it was dragging brake, cause I had bad caliper pads and chewed up rotor. I replaced them and still had the grinding noise. So I pulled it all off today to spin it by hand, and listened at the hub bearing, and there is no noise there, and no wiggle.
The noise is further in, passed the hub, passed the knuckle, and at the axle. But doesn't not extend far down the axle, just the first few inches.

Has anybody had a bad axle shaft do that?

opie1988

mine got so bad I could feel it in the steering wheel when I made a turn (wallow = side to side jerking) I went ahead and replaced front hubs and ujoints as well as brakes and rotors. do search on front axle shaft replacement, there is an easy way to get the hubs off using a ratchet extension and your power steering! worked like a charm for mine with 230K on them.

kissthis66

I just swapped my hub assembly out last night, noise went away for the most part but now I can still hear a little grinding. so either its now the other side going bad or something else going on.

Have you had any luck locating the cause of this noise on yours Brian?

briansgarage

Not yet, I have to wait till I get paid.
When I do, I am going to replace the whole unit.. Shaft, joint, and hub..
That should cure whatever the problem is.
I haven't pulled it yet, plan to do that tonight or this weekend, to see if maybe there is a chunk of rust in there or something, or maybe a bent shaft.
I did pull the cover off the yolk and inspect the gears, and everything looks great, so lucky there..
I honestly don't think it's the hub, because it is solid, and the noise sounds like dragging coming from the axle it's self.
Did you pull out the shaft and take a look yet?

kissthis66

Ya, last night when I swapped the hub, i had to pull the whole axle shaft out to hammer off the hub bearing (250K+ miles was on good). After inspecting the shaft, it looked good, no signs of any rubbing and what have you. I think my next step to is gonna be replacing the u joints becuase im kind of out of ideas as to what it could be.

if your gonna replace the hub i got mine from rockauto.com for $45 shipped after tax and what not. worth checking out thats for sure. its just the stock knocker one but it does the job.

CharlesS

For those of you having this grinding noise problem; just because the bearing sounds good when jacked up and spun doesn't mean that the bearing is good. It just means that it hasn't worn to the point of making a grinding without a load...

One of the members in our SoCal club had a noise up front on the passenger side. He had replaced the hub bearing since the old one was going bad, but the noise continued getting even worse.
Now he changed the rotor and brake pads and the noise was still there. The U joints and ball joints were checked and both were fine...
One of our club members told him to replace his brake pads again. I was skeptical since the pads looked fine so I went for a ride with him and there was definitely a metallic cyclical noise on the passenger side when the brake were pressed.
I was pretty confident the hub bearing was the problem even though it had been replaced. Just because its new doesn't mean it can't be the problem depending upon who the manufacturer is and whether it was installed properly (ie torqued to spec).
Today I was talking to him and asked him if he resolved the problem. He stated that while he torqued the 3 bolts and the 36 mm nut to factory specs; the torque wrench he used was a loner from Kragen AP that are known to be abused by their customers. He rechecked the torque with a known good torque wrench and found out the 36mm nut was only torqued to 155 ft/lbs, Once he retorqued the nut to 175; the noise went away.
I recommended he warrantee the hub bearing, install a new one and this time ensure its torqued properly.