Need some input

Finally bit the bullet after 2yrs and finished regearing my 00 with 456's. Needless to say the truck has spent more time without a front driveshaft than I have wheeled it. In the middle of its life as a 2wd my Tnt ylink was installed and it drove great so I never had it aligned.

So fast forward to today I get the front driveshaft in and adjust the ucas a little since the pinion is off. After doing some reading it looks to be off by quite a bit. So I Put it in 4hi and moved it in my driveway and got a pretty bad grinding/popping sound. It didnt feel to great in 2wd either. Everything worked perfectly 2yrs ago when I pulled the shaft once I had the rear gears done.

Im kinda going on the assumption that it could be the driveshaft since its been sitting in my garage for 2 years. That and the truck drives fine with it removed. Should i be concerned that it could be a transfer case issue(np231)? Would it be possible to throw my rear ds in the front to see if its any different? I read that its not good to drive it around on pavement in 4wd, so how do I diagnose the issue?

If anyone has any tips or advice please let me know. Im already out $900 for the gear install so I gotta make sure I dont just go throwing money at it in hopes of figuring it out. Thanks.

4wd, high or lo + dry surface = binding/popping sounds.

Don't do it.

If you have a full-time NP242 t/case, and select "full-time" 4wd, then you can run on non-slippery surfaces--dry pavement, wet pavement, that kind of surface.

Keep part-time 4wd for dirt, snow, ice, mud, or sand. Of course, if you have hard pavement covered with dirt, snow, ice, mud, or sand, then it would be Ok.

Can I get it up off the ground and throw it in 4l and let it crawl so I can make sure there isnt any binding?

Sure, just do it safe with jackstands.

Swapped the front ds out with one that I know for sure is good. Still getting the same issue. My only guess is that the ds is binding? I dont know enough to know for sure though. Heres a pic of the ds angle.

Did you correct your pinion angle to stock specs? That's a low pinion d30, correct? By eyeballing the pic the dshaft-to-pinion angle looks rather steep. Also, how much play is left in the slip joint on the dshaft? It looks almost fully extended.

this may sound stupid, but it MAY lend a hand in helping you.... both front & rear are geared to 456, right? (i would presume as much).
do you have anyone around that can help you in aligning the tnt y-link? just a thought but it MAY be part of the problem?

(3:47 am & my brain is all over the place lmao)

Onetype said:

Click to expand...

The angle looks pretty steep,how much lift do you have?Also are you by chance running a t-case drop?

soopergoober said:

Did you correct your pinion angle to stock specs? That's a low pinion d30, correct? By eyeballing the pic the dshaft-to-pinion angle looks rather steep. Also, how much play is left in the slip joint on the dshaft? It looks almost fully extended.

Click to expand...

Yes it is a lp30. No I adjusted the ucas out quite a bit and it did start to look a little better but the steering was all over the place so I backed them both back to the way they were. It is rather extended but it was on the vehicle when I got it and I havent changed the lift height at all just the control arms. It didnt do this when I had short arms.

cracked-butt said:

this may sound stupid, but it MAY lend a hand in helping you.... both front & rear are geared to 456, right? (i would presume as much).
do you have anyone around that can help you in aligning the tnt y-link? just a thought but it MAY be part of the problem?

(3:47 am & my brain is all over the place lmao)

Click to expand...

Yes I had the rear done a couple years ago and just did the front, only difference is the gear brand. Ya I could always take it back to the shop I guess. I was trying to at least get it close in my driveway because right now its so bad its not really driveable. It feels like something is about to break lol.

RCP Phx said:

The angle looks pretty steep,how much lift do you have?Also are you by chance running a t-case drop?

Click to expand...

As far as I can tell I would say its 6.0-6.5. It was lifted already when I bought it and the dealership I got it from didnt know shit about it. Only thing i've done is the y-link.

Could the gears have been installed incorrectly?I hope not, but you never know. The only reason im guessing this is because you say that its fine in 2wd, but makes noises in 4wd, you may want to check it out

P.S this thread may need to be moved to modified tech

the angle looks steep because the picture is rotated, look at the horizon

XJ=Fun said:

Could the gears have been installed incorrectly?I hope not, but you never know. The only reason im guessing this is because you say that its fine in 2wd, but makes noises in 4wd, you may want to check it out

P.S this thread may need to be moved to modified tech

Click to expand...

The place that did the gears is called jeep masters. That's all they do is jeeps so I can't imagine them not knowing how to set them up. That's the first thing I thought of so I called my buddy who is a porter there and he assured me the Tech who did them is good. Anyway to clarify once I remove the front ds the problems go away. Even with the ds connected and in 2wd it still feels like something is gonna break.

Well I take that back. It seems as though they could have messed up on the gear install. I threw it up on jackstands and the drivers side front tire isnt even spinning. Even giving it some gas the pass side is spinning fine but the drives seems like its got a ratcheting effect going on. So I guess its back to the shop again for another couple weeks probably. Thanks for the help everyone!

Picked it up from the shop. I was told the gears are fine and that its the transfer case. The drivers side tire isnt spinning in 4hi which I verified myself. They told me that in 4l its fine. Does this sound right? None of this was happening before they installed the gears in the front but I dont think im gonna be able to get them to tear the front end apart to check everything.

The transfer case just makes the yoke spin, but the differential in the axle makes the wheels spin. If you have wheels at different resistance it has absolutely nothing to do with the transfer case.

However... if this is 90 or earlier then the vacuum disconnect on the front axle might have something to do with it, and that is controlled by the 231 transfercase.

I'd pop the diff cover and see if anything seems badly out of place. I'm not sure how they could have screwed it up so one wheel will turn but the other won't when in 2wd unless they installed a locker badly.

Its a 2000 so no vac disco. No locker its still open. One of the u-joints is making noise so I gotta tear it apart eventually when the weather gets better, I just dont know what to look for. The odd thing is the wheel doesnt have a problem spinning at first. After a couple of mins is when it starts binding. They told me they popped both front and rear covers and checked the gears and they both looked good. Could the wheel binding be a bad unit bearing or something and be a seperate issue from the transfer case?

if its open diff in the front and you have bind on one side then it will only spin the one free wheel when up on stands and the bound wheel will just sit there

Ya Im just not sure whats causing it to bind. I guess ill be pulling both shafts and the transfer case out.