On the way home last night, get halfway thru town, pull away from a stop slowly and started hearing a clunking or woop woop woop sound. Sounded like the driveshaft was falling apart, lol. Stop and crawled under it with a light, everything looked fine. Ujoints intact and I shock on the shaft, seemed to be solid still. I took the chance and drove it home, it made the noise bad at first, then less later on down the road. I put the truck in neutral and revved in while at speed and the sound went away, back in gear and it still makes the noise. What gear its in doesnt matter, trans fluid seems fine, temps are great, shifting fine. I am thinking carrier bearing(2 peice shaft) going bad or a u joint possibly binding up under load. The entire shaft and joints are stock with 170,000 miles on them. The only concern and doubt I have about it not being something on the driveshaft is when putting it in neutral it makes no noise. Anyone have a clue as to what going on, I didnt have time to look at it this morning, took the car to work.

 

With it being in neutral there is not any load on it. If I had to guess this is why the noise went away. I would pull the drive shaft to inspect all the components mentioned. If you don't see anything look at the rear end. Vince

 

Thats what I was thinking, the load was off the shaft. I just replaced the fluid in the rear end a couple days ago, and the spider gears a couple weeks before that. I will pull the shaft tommorow morning, that carrier bearing is probably bad. I am going to go ahead and replace it anyway and the ujoints because they have some hard miles on them.

 

Make sure to let us know what you find.

 

good god change your cheap u joints while your at it! Good insurance

 

planned on it as stated in my previous post.

 

Update, jacked it up and checked it out. Looks like its going to be the pinion bearing. Also, the new spider gears I recently put in arent looking too good. One of them seems to be worn pretty bad already. Seems like the housing where it sits is worn causing some slack in the one.