havochaos

I had a popping issue similar to yours, though not as pronounced. Mine happened to be the sway bar links. Swapped out from the RC to JKS and haven't heard anything since.

pirate

Since it seems by ( video) to be louder at the tcase, I wonder if the chain has just stretched and is allowing the input to load and unload the chain witch in turns makes the noise you hear. Disconnect the front shaft and then go for a quick drive and see if it goes away when it's cold out.

Their are tensioners inside to keep the chain tight I wonder if one of those are binding up with the cold weather/thick fluids. Not keeping the corect tension or guiding.

Have you changed the fluid in the tcase? If so to what? If it is the tcase it is fixable you just need to replace the chain. The milage seems low to have worn out the chain, but with differen gears maybe it helped it along. The chain could have been set to tight or too loose and the extra speed just spead it up.

I'd pull the front shaft out for a bit and see if it comes back! Unless your planning on offroading you don't need it in for the testing purposes. With out the shaft in the front half of the tcase won't be spinning. If the noise is still present then you know it's from the trans/tcase or rear drive shaft/axle. It could still be something in the front but you seem confindante that everything is tight and correctly installed.

pirate

As well do you have someone you can trust so you can lie under the jeep/Very close to it and have them drive/back up while you are holding/touching components under the jeep to see if you can narrow it down more? With a clunk like that you should be able to feel it threw most components!

mpkelley20

Ugh!!! This sucks!!! Looks like this is the first time I will complain about warm weather! Today will be the coldest day of the week and it is 32 degrees at 7am.

I sprayed the piss out of my joints with PB blaster yesterday hoping that id see if maybe that helps with any binding if the noise is coming from my control arms by any chance. Rock Krawler arms I have are maintenance free but they do recommend wd40 or similar on the RK joint end (axle). I sprayed both frame and axle end this time.

Good news is noise is nowhere to be found this morning but at 32 degrees, it's just above the point where I've heard the noise. Guess I will have to wait

I was able to score a set of front ten factory rubi shafts at a great price from a buddy so I will be putting those in once I get them. Doubt it is the issue but I've been meaning to upgrade my front axles anyway. Ill do that along with my ball joints (passenger side have some play right now).

Ill check back in a while once I can properly test all this (I.e when it's colder). I will start pulling stuff off if noise persists.

Blatant

Here's the thing. You asked for advice and got a bunch of it. Instead of hemming and hawing and spraying a bunch of WD40, take 10 minutes, get under your rig and pop the front driveshaft off. Then go drive it for a week and see if you can/can't replicate the issue.

Hope I'm not being a d!ck about it, but you seem to be really concerned about this issue. If that's the case, be proactive and nail it down. Good luck.

mpkelley20

Before I start pulling stuff off I need the noise to be present. That way, all the stuff I have done can be ruled out. if I pull the driveshaft today with the weather going into the 50's this week, I will be waiting an awful long time to see if that fixes it. And when the cold weather returns, I won't know if the DS removal or the other things I have done fixed it.


That's why....if you read my last post.....I will wait until its falls below freezing again, see if the noise comes back and then start pulling stuff. I will be focusing on driveshafts, axles and control arms at first and then focus on transfer case if the others don't work. It's been unfortunate that since I posted the thread, we have not had weather below freezing so the noise has been gone.

So you aren't being an d!ck but you have to understand that in order to diagnose the problem, the problem has to exist when attempting to fix it or you are working blindly and possibly replacing perfectly good parts. This thread has given me numerous things to add to my list to try. I just can' justify ripping my transfer case apart yet until I can try one thing at a time to try and fix it.

But I need freezing temps.......

Blade

When they put your new yokes in, did they replace the crush sleeve on the pinion. This could cause this issue. The torque they put on it would be accurate at temp, but due to the loss of tension at the crush sleeve, it would go loose as it got cold. Always a possibility.

mpkelley20

This question is a little above my pay grade! LOL!!

I assume that when my gears were done, a new crush sleeve was used. But I don't think that is what you are referring to.

When my DS's were installed, we followed the project JK method which included re-torquing the pinion nut to 160 ft lbs. From what I underdstand, to properly do what you are saying, we should have removed the axles and carrier and put in a new crush sleeve. Right?

But I think what you are saying is for me to check the torque on the pinion to make sure it is still where it is supposed to be??

Blade

I was under the impression that whenever you remove the pinion nut, a new crush sleeve should be used. From what I understand, it helps to keep proper preload on the pinion bearings. I was thinking that as it gets cold the preload loosens and causes your noise. I could be overthinking this, but it was an idea.

mpkelley20

I think your suggestion is the first one that could make sense when I factor in the cold aspect. I called my buddy who owns a shop that specializes in Jeeps (I am considering going there but he's 2+ hours away) and ran this by him. He said it sounds feasible. He said it is easy to check and told me what to do. basically 4 bolts on axle end and then check the pinion nut. He actually suggested taking the pinion nut back out, putting some additional red loctite on it (assuming we did that the frst time around ) and then re-torquing.

he explianed that the "proper" way of installing a new yoke would be to take everything out of the axle and install a new crush sleeve and dial everything thing in with some other kind of torque wrench I don't own. He said MOST people swapping out the yoke will follow the project JK method because 99.999% of the time it is fine. basically, torque the pinion nut to 160 ft lbs and be done with it. Doing it this way is obviously much much cheaper than pulling apart the axle!

So, while I wait for colder weather to come back, I think I will double check both front and rear pinions to make sure that they are torqued properly and they have red loctite on them (I really don't know if we used any at install...and I had a mechanic friend help with it...hmm...). I've re-torqued everything but those!

Once the cold weather returns, if the noise comes back, I can rule that out and start taking shafts off to rule out u-joints.

For your reading pleasure, here is the project JK write-up on how to replace driveshafts on our JK's (well, the easier way!) Project-JK.com - Jeep JK Wrangler Resource » Jeep JK Wrangler Coast Front 1310 Drive Shaft Installation Write-Up

Thanks for the suggestion!!