I recently bought a used lifted 97 cherokee lifted 6.5 inches with long arm lift. Just replaced rear brakes completely and at about 45mph i jear a harmonic bell sound like a bearing or something. U-joints are good and tight. It has a sye and an adams rear drive shaft. I drove home from work, under ten mile trip at about 45-55mph. Got out of jeep and begun feeling for a hot spot by any bearing area. Found transfer case to be so hot i couldnt hold my hand on it and rear diff as well. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Jeep has stock axles and gears with 166,000miles.

 

Sounds like it's way over due for a fluid change.

 

Transfer case has fresh tranny fluid in it. Diff has older gear oil but something has to be going bad. Just dont know what

 

Probably the pinion bearing singing its death song.
See how long you want to hold your hand on the hood.

 

x2. If the axle is that hot, something is wrong. Pinion bearing usually fail first.

I believe the normal operating temperature should be around 105 degrees. Or is it 140 degrees?

 

Ill check temp tonight with temp gun. Question, what should the diff angle be? It seems off by a little. The guy i bought it from put on everything in the huge lift kit he bought but, the pinion points down a little from the angle of driveshaft. No trans drop or motor mount lift either. 6.5 long arm lift.

 

pictures would help here

 

Are there not any shims on the differential?

 

OP, gotta ask a few things. What engine and tranny you have. Also what size tires and what axles is second. Third, hoe do you know the TC has fresh fluid. 4th, you just bought this so I'm assuming you did a once.over on all the joints and checked all the fluid on everything and TRE and DS grease. Like others said. Take a pic of you DS angle

 

he have two grannies

 

I'm a freak like that.i wanna know about his grannies bwahahahah.

I fixed my original post

 

and now u are asking about trannies? You are a weird freak. Lol

 

Least I can hear when his grannies and trannies scream at me so Lol.

 

I guess u must get caught a lot

 

the one thing that i learned over the years is that trans fluid does not lubricate. It has friction modifiers to help the clutch packs engage. Also there is usually no contamination inside the case so that trans fluid that is in there could be from when the sye was installed. It is possible that when the SYE was installed the oil pickup tube was not connected to the oil pump and burned up the bearings. For the case I would drain the fluid and put 10-30 motor oil in there and see how it runs after. or you can 85-140 gear oil like I do in my 231.
As far as the rear pull the cover and clean it out very well. There could be water it there that is destroying the bearings look for metal flakes when you take the cover off.