Help with a bad noise

So last week I had the power steering line (high pressure) burst, and today I have a disturbing sound coming from the engine bay. Need some advice.

So started her up this morning, nothing out of the norm. Turning a corner leaving my neighborhood and as I get on throttle a funny rattling/sputtering noise comes from the engine bay area. So I pull over, looking around at wheels and suspension and chassis, pop the hood, poke around...nothing looks or sounds weird so I continue. In gear at light loads nothing, but when I start to get it more load the sputtering noise continues and while I'm driving at about 45mph it is loud enough to hear bouncing off surrounding houses and fences. So I pull over again assuming my new header must be badly leaking...but at idle she is quiet as a mouse! I said F-it and drove back home and took the wife's car.

So it is a sputter (like exhaust) but also a metallic rattle (like lifter tick, obviously not...or maybe spun bearing). Any ideas?! Oil pressure gauge seemed to be working and reading normal pressure. With no load I can open the throttle with no bad noises, but I think I could still faintly hear it but I have no clue where it is coming from.

Any idea?!

I found the source of my horrific drive-line vibes over the weekend (rear drive-shaft center joint..actually it is a front drive-shaft but I have a SYE) so I'm pretty excited about that. But now I need to find a new drive-shaft before I can wheel. BTW, does anyone know of a bolt in drive-shaft that is longer than stock front XJ? Did I hear that a ZJ is longer?

Still have the engine noise. My fan clutch seems to be acting different. Does anyone know if that would make the sound I described above?

V8 ZJ front shaft is something like 35" collapsed. Thats what I have under mine.

88JeepXJ said:

Still have the engine noise. My fan clutch seems to be acting different. Does anyone know if that would make the sound I described above?

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Just for fun...check to see if your fan shroud is contacting the fan. Makes a d-d-d-d-d-d sound that increases with RPM and falls off at idle.

It could also be water pump, they growl and moan.

Or distributor, that's more of a howl.

...and then check to see if your harmonic balancer is starting to walk in/out, possibly rubbing on the timing cover. That makes a horrible sound but would not go away under load.

My money is on the mechanical fan shroud.

88JeepXJ said:

I found the source of my horrific drive-line vibes over the weekend (rear drive-shaft center joint..actually it is a front drive-shaft but I have a SYE) so I'm pretty excited about that. But now I need to find a new drive-shaft before I can wheel. BTW, does anyone know of a bolt in drive-shaft that is longer than stock front XJ? Did I hear that a ZJ is longer?

Still have the engine noise. My fan clutch seems to be acting different. Does anyone know if that would make the sound I described above?

Click to expand...

it was so bad it actually needs to be replaced? wow. I've used U-joints way too long before replacing them and never had to replace a shaft yet.

For instance, this is the one at the pinion on my rear DS a few weeks ago:


oops :dunno:

Punch that sucker out and toss a new one in and you're good to go. Unless you are talking about the centering ball assembly that is, haven't had to mess with that yet.

I'm talking about the center ball joint thing. WTF is that anyway? There is a detent in the joint and feels terrible moving it by hand. All the ujoints are fine.

BTW, impressive failed joint!

The center ball joint thing keeps the angle on the two U-joints equal as the shaft spins. You can get rebuild kits to replace most of the parts in it, there is a writeup around here somewhere.

That joint resulted in my jeep doing its best impression of a massage chair as I drove from Haverhill to Worcester... it kinda sucked. Didn't have a spare with me, so I had to limp it home on that piece of junk and replace it the next morning.

The weird thing is that it went suddenly and during the same weekend that I lost the power steering line and started having a noise coming from the engine. You'd think I hit a moose or something.

bdahlg said:

V8 ZJ front shaft is something like 35" collapsed. Thats what I have under mine.

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Is this what you have?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390302064108&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

MIne doesn't have the boot over the slip joint. It may have been 33", i really don't remember. Apparently it's not really that big of a deal unless you have an AX-15 in which you are going to need a longer one. I could probs use a front driveshaft out of an auto XJ and the length would be just fine with my AW4/D35 combo

So can some one confirm exactly what I'm looking for? What year ZJ? Only the V8?