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AW4 Experts!!! Need help!!!

mengleff

NAXJA Forum User
Location
sacramento
Took my '97 with a 4.0/AW4 into aamco to get a leaking tranny cooler line fixed. slow drip of a leak, had been keeping an eye on the level, just thought it needed to be fixed, so i took it in, and also mentioned it had a hard engage into reverse. later aamco guy calls me, says it's a leaky line, coolant line fitting, and no biggy, you're a quart low (figured). recommends a service along with topping it off. says the hard engage into reverse could be indicative of something going bad in the future, they have an addititive that will hold it off for awhile longer. i say cool. i pick it up today. as i pull out into traffic i have to hit the gas a bit to get into traffic and i hear a grinding noise. it sounded just like my tire was rubbing on the inner fenderwell, but it's coming from the tunnel cover. the thing has never made this noise before, and i'm no stranger to the skinny pedal, i know what my rigs gonna do when i hit it. this noise, it's weird. it sounds like a tire rubbing on an inner fenderwell, but it doesn't sync with the rpm's like you'd expect a tranny noise to, it's in sync with my speed. the harder i hit the gas, the louder it gets, and vise versa, it disappeared when i wasn't under acceleration from a stop, but always in sync with my speed. i picked it up on my way to work this afternoon, so i drove it in city traffic 5-6 miles with 6-8 stoplights in between. the sound dwindled the farther i got, with each stoplight, but i'm scared that something has been ground down.
i called the shop from work immediately and just told the guy what had happened, he said- never made a noise during test drive, i said- it makes the noise under harder acceleration than you guys probably put to it. not wanting to be a dick, i wasn't one, and since the shop was closing, and i was @ work and couldn't leave, we decided i'd leave it where it is until monday when i can drive it back to the shop. the drain plug has a magnet right? so they'll be able to tell if there has been metal ground inside since the time they last filled it, ie; today? metal that they would have told me about had it been there when they drained it the first time? whaddya think?
 
You say it might not be tranny noise because it corresponds to speed, not RPM, but keep in mind the output of your tranny corresponds directly to speed, input to RPM.
 
Could it be the driveshaft or u-joint rubbing the tunnel? Maybe when you accellerated out into traffic you broke the transmission mount/bolt?
 
Definately check the Trans Mount and go from there.
 
that's a relief, sounded to much like a tire inside a fenderwell to be gears... imma have to crawl underneath tommorrow before work and have a look see... that eases my mind a ton, supposed to take off to the mountains for a week on tuesday, woulda wasted a weeks vacation and money that i don't have if something else was f@cked up...
thanks for the quick responses! :cheers:
 
shit. i think it's the axle. sounds like it's coming from the pass side front axle, kind of a gear grinding noise under acceleration. :mad:
 
mengleff said:
shit. i think it's the axle. sounds like it's coming from the pass side front axle, kind of a gear grinding noise under acceleration. :mad:
sounds a little fishy to me unless you drive in fourwheel drive on the street which is very bad unless ofcorse you have the fulltime trans case oh and by the way as far as i know the fluid change for the aw4 is done with a transfusion pump and the pan is never droped untill the 100,000 tranny service and unless you or someone else put in a magnetic drain plug it dosnt have one. it dose however have two small magnets in the pan to catch stuff which you could have checked, also that dip stick is a pain in the a$$ to get apart if you think you might do it your self
 
scoobyxj said:
sounds a little fishy to me unless you drive in fourwheel drive on the street which is very bad unless ofcorse you have the fulltime trans case
nope... np231... whaddya mean fishy?
oh and by the way as far as i know the fluid change for the aw4 is done with a transfusion pump and the pan is never droped untill the 100,000 tranny service and unless you or someone else put in a magnetic drain plug it dosnt have one. it dose however have two small magnets in the pan to catch stuff which you could have checked, also that dip stick is a pain in the a$$ to get apart if you think you might do it your self
they did a 100k service.
 
don't see anyplace that the front ds could be or has rubbed. if the hub is going bad, could anything be slipping that might cause a noise like this? even though i'm not in 4w? i've run the tf thru 4h 4l and back to 2w to see if that made a diff, but i still get the noise. doesn't even make a difference if i'm turning or straightline. does dropping the tranny mount to do the service cause anything that might stick the tf in 4w to cause this? part time light is not on. at a loss...
 
babied it back to the shop today... here's what i'm getting from aamco.
took it in @ 8:30, quizzed the service writer as to what they did. he says they didn't do a 100k service on the tranny, but they did drop the tranny mount to do what they did; replace the leaking line/fitting and service the tranny. so i showed a tech what it does in the parking lot. from a stop, i hit the gas, and i get a noise like trying to cram a manual into gear without engaging the clutch. it accelerates just fine, but something is grinding. tech says leave it here. call them @ 1:30p, they say they've had a couple of techs on it for a couple of hours, have not been able to track down the source of the noise. talk to the service writer @ 2:45 or so, he says they've narrowed it down to either the transfer case or the front diff, but they still don't know what is wrong, and it definately "doesn't have anything to do with what we did, just some weird coincidence." says they sublet this kind of work to some other shop, and the inspection from the other shop is going to run $350.00 before anything is done. they will pull the TC & diff etc etc. so it's going to be $350 + whatever the other shop finds wrong; parts & labor. am i getting f@cked? :flamemad: i have an aftermarket warrantee on the rig, it covers drivetrain, but damned if i want to get my warrantee involved if they screwed something up and are just trying to screw me to fix it. not to mention i took it in to them last week so i could be sure to have a trouble free week in the mountains... which i'm thinking now is getting flushed... :cry: imma be on my ass at home for the next week. :flamemad:
i'm thinking about calling the Bureau of Auto Repair tomorrow, is it warranted? should i get them involved?
 
NEVER EVER TAKE YOUR CAR TO AMMACO! I would bet my life that they did something to your rig to get you back in for more repair. And I garentte that they stomped the shit out of the "skinny" pedal
 
Sounds like they put the trans crossbar back in backwards (you don't want to know. DOH!) and th driveshaft is touching it under load. That or the tcase shifter is part way engaging from torque because they didn't line it back up in the exact same place.
 
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