Driveline grinding noises

The other day i changed out my transmission mount and changed my tranny fluid. The fluid that came out was pretty burnt looking and brown. Now whenever i accelerate hard I get a weird grinding noise from right underneath my center console, so I am assuming it is the transmission. What could it be?

BTW it is a 95 Cherokee with 96,000 miles on it. I just crawled under it and there was a little play where the rear driveshaft connects to the transfer case. ALso, it looked like some fluid has been leaking from that spot. Any ideas?

Anybody have a problem like this? I just got done changing my transmission filter and fluid and that didn't help it at all. It's a harsh grinding sound under acceleration that seems to be coming from the tranny or t-case. There is a little bit of play in the rear driveshaft and it looks like it has been leaking fluid out of the rear shaft on the t-case. I'm thinking that the bearing(s) might be shot. Any thots?

this may not be it, but my 99 had a sound coming from under the consol sounded kinda like the exhaust rubbing on something and vibrating...turned out to be the transfer case shift linkage vibrating and making a grinding type noise. now this noise didn't change sounds at different speeds it was constant...if your noise changes as your speed does it is something else

baseballneal86 said:

Anybody have a problem like this? I just got done changing my transmission filter and fluid and that didn't help it at all. It's a harsh grinding sound under acceleration that seems to be coming from the tranny or t-case. There is a little bit of play in the rear driveshaft and it looks like it has been leaking fluid out of the rear shaft on the t-case. I'm thinking that the bearing(s) might be shot. Any thots?

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I had this problem in my 88... although I never messed with the fluid in the tranny.

Make sure your tranny mount is in the correct way(trust me you can put it in backwards if you FORCE IT.. don't ask me how I know. :viking: ) the sound you are describing sounds exactly like the front drive shaft is rubbing up against the the tranny tunnel, just like mine.

also, my tires rub when I punch it so maybe also check your tires for rub marks..

My XJ is stock and there aren't any rub marks on the tires so i know it's not that. There is some tranny fluid like sprayed on the underside of the body right around the rear output of the t-case so it makes me think that something went wrong there. could the output shaft come loose somehow or something like that. i'm pretty sure i put the mount in the right way but i will check that again. Any other ideas? How hard is it to change the rear bearing on a 242 t-case?

Try changing the seal in the transfer, before you attempt the bushing. I´ve never changed the bushing in a 242, but have done a 241, imagine they are close to the same.
If the seal doesn´t hold or wears out quick. Time to think about changing the bushing.
Grinding or growling sounds travel through the whole driveline, often hard to figure out exactly where they are coming from. Where you hear the noise, is often not where it originated, but where you can hear it the best.
Some common problems are bearings, U-joints and differential parts.
Some of the places I have found, in order of probability are, front driveshaft U-joints, driveshaft U-joints, wheel bearings, spider gears, carrier bearings. There are others. On occasion, I´ve had to put the XJ on a lift and run it at 15-20 MPH, with some kind of hearing help. to nail down the source of the noise. A little brake pressure to load up the driveline often helps, in diagnosis. If you put it on a lift, be extremely careful of rotating parts, hair clothes what not, can cause catastrophy.
My NP242 whines pretty good in full time, never seemed to hurt much.
The double U-joint (carden) on the front driveshaft (unless you have a CV joint) rarley gets greased, needs a special fitting for the end of the grease gun.

Did you change your transfer case fluid? You might drain it out and see what that looks and smells like...

I'm gonna change my t-case fluid today and see how it looks. If the fluid was low or dirty, would the transfer case make noises? Also, how hard is it to change the rear seal and bushing on the case? Would the parts be available at a local parts store or would I have to go to the dealer to get them. Thanks

I can't help with the seal or bushing...

But if you run the transfer case damn near out of fluid by cooking it with running in 4-low at too high speeds for too long it will make noise. If that were to ever happen to me my case might have gone "clackity-clackity-clackity" with every turn of the drive shaft.

Of course that's only if it happened to me. :dunce:

Sequoia

FWIW, I lost my AW4 at 160K. Had a grinding noise that developed quite suddenly one day. I swapped the fluid out and found to my horror that there was nice fresh metal shavings in the pan. I also had a bad u-joint and a leaky rear output shaft seal. I don't know for sure but the tranny shop blamed the tranny failure on the u joint. I had them put in a new rear seal in the tcase while they were at it. I also lost my death wobble with the new u joint. Take a good hard look at your u's, if one's dead you'll get some grinding noises from it. Hopefully your tranny is okay.

I hope your problem isn't as bad/expensive as mine was.