smithyboy69

So im kind of stumped on this one, to start my truck is a SAS 87 hilux surf. The truck started making a noise and vibration in 4wd out of nowhere the other day, no previous noises or shakes or anything. The noise is kind of like a really aggressive bearing growl, it sounds like someone running a grader on concrete, theres also quite a noticeable shake when the noise is present to and it almost seems harder to steer aswell. The noise only starts after driving for a few minutes, more prominent in 4hi then 4lo and its there regardless of whether the hubs are locked or unlocked and it only seems to happens on Deceleration, it accelerates fine with no noise and braking doesnt seem to affect the noise either. Drained and checked the T-case and apart from having milky fluid everything seemed to be fine, no chunks in the oil or anything. Pulled the front driveline and checked the U-joints and visually they seem fine, no play anywhere and the joints have smooth full range of motion.

Drained the front diff and there was quite a bit of very fine metal particles and quite a few flakes of metal aswell that look like little chips that got ran through the gears, again no major metal chunks or anything but the amount of metal and presence of metal flakes is definitely making me suspect the front diff. Just looking for opinions before i go tearing into it, anyone have some insight on what this might be? carrier bearings? pinon bearing? ive been told the bronze bushings in the spindle could be binding?

bigtoy83

did you check the pinion nut it might be loose