My old '02 Overland would do it on occasion. I'd do the diff fluids front and rear every 30k with the Chrysler friction modifier (the Vari-Loks seem to ONLY operate properly with the Chrysler brand, at least in my old '02). Without fail it would start to "moan" about 15k miles after the fluid fill and I'd have to do another half bottle in the diff to get it to shut up until the next fluid change.


Might be your problem...

 

hammer, you are the man! that makes perfect sense!!

gonna get the modifier, and 75w140 friday!

modifier is 9 a 4oz bottle, and the 75 140 is 34 a quart from the dealer! gonna go to advance and get the oil!

 

So did this fix the problem or not?

 

Ill find out today if the rain holds off. If not tomorrow...

 

welp..... did the fluid change today. the fill plug is magnetic, and there was hardly anything on it, and no shavings in the oil. oil also looked fairly new.

so i got it changed, friction modifier, and royal purple 75w140. used permatex ultra black for a gasket, and put it all back together..

noise is the same... so its time to replace some wheel bearings!

 

wheel bearings aren't so bad on those jeeps...atleast the axle nuts arent torqued to a thousand ft-lbs like the 2nd gen rams!

 

all easy stuff when you have air tools! haha.

im really, really getting sick of one guys on the jeep forum.

he thinks hes a know it all. he keeps telling me he knows for a fact that its my diff bearings.

if my bearings were bad, there would have been bearing material in the fluid, and metal shavings on the magnet, which there werent.

also, the carrier would have had some sort of slop in it upon inspection, again, there wasnt.

 

so, a little update..driving home last night, i turned the radio down, and got the jeep up to about 50. while the noise was very noticeable, i began to swerve in the road(late at night, no traffic). upon doing so, i finally noticed that while turning, the noise got louder when turning left, but when turning right, it got a little bit quieter.

so it look like its the passenger wheel bearing.

whats weird is, it sounds like the noise is all on the drivers side.

 

Yea sounds seem to travel weird when you're inside the vehicle....i've been through this same thing on a couple different cars...even this week, i've got a bad rear axle bearing in my 03 tracker...could have sworn the clicking/humming noise was coming from the passenger side...but after pulling the wheels and spinning each one individually, nope! It's definitely the rear drivers bearing. Unfortunately I'll have to bring the axle to a machine shop to have the new bearing pressed on i hate not doing things myself

 

I picked up a used 25 ton press for a little over a 100 bucks. Nice to have for just such an occasion.