And there was definite wear in the cv shaft-shreds of metal and lots of play in it. Let's hope the other side doesn't break, but if it does, at least we know what it is.

 

Good to hear we could help you and thanks for the update!

 

I'm baaackkk! Our D made grinding noise again last night on my commute home. Same side as the new CV halfshaft. Hubby drove it around the block and pulled it into the garage immediately. Thinks its in the differential. NOW he tells me that he wasn't 100% sure the original problem was the halfshaft, although the metal-to-metal grinding noise went away for a while and the grinding this time wasn't as loud or as high pitched as last time. So he'll pull it apart tonight to see what it is this time. I'll keep you posted, but he's pretty sure its in the differential. Any tricks, tips, etc. on this? Thanks guys.....

Back to driving my '98 Grand Caravan. Which, by the way, has a heck of a lot more miles than the D and to date (knock on wood) hasn't given us any major problems. I wish it would last forever....

 

yea proper maintenance will do that, anytime you buy a used vehicle you buy the previous owners (more often than not) lack of maintenance with it, sorry to hear, but keep in mind that noise travels very easily through the drivetrain of these trucks

 

H took the pumpkin off last night and everything inside is pristine. Then he investigated further while everything is apart. Appears that the passenger front wheel bearing is bad - metal shavings, etc. So hopefully THIS will fix the problem. We're going to go ahead and replace both the driver and passenger sides while we're at it. I found some great help in another thread about replacing these. We also have to put new bushings in the sway bar. I'll let you know how everything turns out.

 

That's what I was going to tell you to look at. Good to see you found it tho!

 

New hub is on; we went with the Timkin replacement, even though it's a bit more expensive. Tons of great recommendations on these threads for Timkin and we wanted to be sure we didn't buy some junk part that leaves us stranded on the side of the road in 6 months. Didn't do the drivers side yet; we're waiting until after Thanksgiving and deer hunting to do that, since we've already spent a considerable chunk of change in the past couple months. Noise appears to be gone; H is driving it today to make sure everything is good. Will check tonight to make sure everything is okay, and then he'll install the sway bar bushings. All this with a torn bicep muscle - what a trooper!

My "old reliable" '98 Grand Caravan threw the serpentine belt the other night for no apparent reason, so now we're replacing that! I swear, if we didn't have bad luck, we'd have no luck at all!!

Thanks again for all the advice. We'll keep checking the threads for any help we need in the future; with 113,000 + miles, we need all the help we can get!!