mlepesant

Hello all,

Jeep cherokee sport, 1998, 4.0L Aw4. 350k miles. Dana 35C rear axle.
I have had a similar issue repeating over the years and I would like some input before I spend more money.. I keep having a loud growling noise developing on the rear left wheel.
I bought the jeep with 85k on it. I noticed a few thousand miles into it that it had a growling sound coming from the left rear. Going through the PO paperwork I saw that he had complained about this noise to a dealer (very early in the life of the car). Nothing was found.
I had the left rear wheel bearing changed soon after. Sound disappeared but came back a few thousand miles after.
I drove like this for almost 150k miles.. Got sick of the noise and had a used Dana 35C put in by a mechanic. I do not know if the axle shaft bearing had been changed at that time. But, no more noise.
Noise came back, rear left, after about 30k miles. Drove it with this growling noise for another 80k. I then changed last April the left axle shaft (with a dorman 630307), which had a deep groove in it where the bearing sits, the bearing (with a Timken 5707)which was shot, and the axle seal (with one bought at the dealer) which was leaking. No more noise... until a few weeks ago (so that's not even 15k miles since I changed all this), when the same growling sound came back. The seal is not leaking. I am certain that I installed the bearing correctly.
So now, if I keep driving like this I am certain it will kill the axle shaft again, but I don't understand what I am doing wrong. I don't really want to do this repair every 30 or 40k miles...
Are you aware of similar problems, always on the rear left, and rear left only? What would you suggest I do differently? Switching to a chrysler 8.25 probably won't help for this type of problem? By the way, the car is a daily driver, all stock; no off-road at all.
Thank you for your input.

Jeep Driver

Yes, get the 8.25

Precisely why most of us say the D35s are JUNK.

mlepesant

Ok. And when you guys are saying this I thought it would be because of the differential assembly, not because of the always left wheel bearing. Would you know why? Is it a question of design?