JCJimmyD

96 zj. 242 transfer case 42re trans. When ever I put in 4wdi get a growl when ever I let of the throttle. I give it some gas and the growl goes away.

I changed everything I know to change. Drive shaft u joints on front and rear shaft. Axle shady u joints. Bearing assemblies. Changed diff oil and inspected gears. Changed t case oil. It goes in and 4wd with no problems. I'm at a lose. Amy ideas?

Bustedback

Is this a new development? How long have you had this rig?

JCJimmyD

I've had this rig for Goin on 5 years now. This growl started about a month ago. My first thought was u joints and went from there. I didn't start turning it into a trail rig until last year. Budget boost shocks a set of 31s.

Bustedback

The tranfercase gears are a straight cut gear, they will make some noise. How did the fluid look when you changed it?

JCJimmyD

It didn't look to bad really. It was old but there were no metal chunks in it or anything. No sparkle either. I'm completely puzzled.

dave1123

Check the splines on your front driveshaft. With the lift, it's stretched out more. If it's not sliding, it can be putting more load on the t-case output bearing.

JCJimmyD

I'll do that. It seemed to slide with little effort when I had it off but I never did check the the splines. Thanks

JCJimmyD

Ok front drive shaft looks fine. For ****s and giggles I pend the front diff and it looks fine to. The pinion shaft is tight. Oil clean. Got 5 inches of snow last night. 4wd all the way to work. And not the growl is intermittent. I have no clue

Bustedback

Now that I think about it, my ZJ had a strange noise only when I was in 4wd. It turned out being the left unit bearing. It had no play in it, but there was grease seeping out from around the seal. I replaced both unit bearings with Timken units from www.rockauto.com.

driveshaftron

what it sounds like to me is if you put a lift on the truck then the driveshafts are to short im not sure without seeing your rig but i think you have like a tahoe male slined yolk that goes into tcase if so whats hapened is your extended and when you let off gas you get chater cus not enough meat or sline contact alsothe ujoints when you dont use 4wd for a while what happens is condinsation builds up on jernals or trunion and the rust causing ujoint failing i recomend about once a month u put in 4 high drivge about 1 to 2 miles and let driveline spin to keep lubercation moving pm me if you need to talk im a pro driveline tech

JCJimmyD

Did that 2 weeks ago. When I first started hearing the noise.

JCJimmyD

The from drive shaft has cradles on the front and bolts to a yoke that attatched to the out put shaft via a large nut. I lifted it over a year ago and running trails in 4wd quite a bit. I ran it in 4wd all the way to work today. Gonna take a look at the oil again. And double check my hub assemblies. Maybe I have a defaulty one

JCJimmyD

I only lifted 2 and a half inches.

JCJimmyD

Turns out I did have a bad bearing hub. Three weeks old. Nice right? Lucky my local auto parts store had timkin hub assemblies. Warrenty equals happy

dave1123

I'm going to rethink my plan. I've ALWAYS used Timkin bearings and NEVER had a premature failure, even in industrial machinery. Maybe, like everyone else, they are contracting to China. This kind of destroys my faith in them. Maybe it's just a random thing, you think?