Both U-joints appear and feel to be in good condition, this sounds more like its coming from the pinion area of the rear end.


I know about the whine, my old 83 toyota had it bad until I finally got a complete 3rd to replace it. This noise however is a metal on metal "knock" noise that I have never heard before.

I did replace the race with the bearing. The pinion feels nice and tight so I dont think it is anything to do with slack in it.

I am at the point where I am going to pull the cover back off and see what is hitting. I am almost sure it sounds like somthing on the posi is literally hitting the end of the pinion as it goes around. Hopefully there are some marks or something that can point me to what it might be. I will keep you guys informed. I need to figure this out, I need this truck to pull my 4wd. It is getting to be perfect wheeling weather......

 

Thought I would provide a bit of an update on this. I pulled it all back apart this morning and could see nothing wrong with anything inside the housing. I thought maybe it was something to do with the G80 so I pulled it out and noticed the drivers side clutches had quite a bit of play in and out more so than the pass side clutches. So I decided to throw my dads stock open carrier in and see if that took care of the noise. It didnt.

So now I think I have narrowed it down to something with the pinion. I dont really know how I could have messed up putting that in but I dont know what else it could be. So, I guess thats what I get for tryng to do a gear install half-assed.

 

Just wanted to update this thread as I finally got a chance to pull everything back apart. I decided the noise must be coming from the pinion. Since I had replaced the inner bearing and race when I first installed the gears I decided to replace the outer bearing and race, the seal, and the crush sleeve. Got everything back together and no noise. The only thing I could find that looked remotely wrong was the crush sleeve had a small crack at one of the ends. I dont know how or if this would have caused the noise. Anyway just wanted to finish this out for those that may have the same problem later down the road.

 

glad you found it. That crap will drive you nuts.