Whining/whirring sound up front

As the title states I have a whining sound, almost like a remote control car that is most noticeable from 15-50 mph. The sound remains no matter if I'm accelerating/decelerating, coasting, and remains even if coasting in neutral. I jacked up the front and turned both tires. There is more noise on the driver side but obviously I cant spin it fast enough to duplicate the sound. I was leaning toward hubs but there is no play when grabbing the wheel at 12 and 6. I would like to eliminate the front diff as the culprit. Would removing the front driveshaft help rule it out as a problem? Any other tests would be helpful as there are no trustworthy shops in my area.

Could be the centering ball assembly in your front driveshaft. Remove the front driveshaft and take it for a spin.

The differential is closer to to drivers side. Sometime hub bearings make noise with no noticeable play and one with play may make no noise. Bad differential carrier bearings commonly make noise at all speeds over 20mph and regardless of whether or the vehicle is coasting, accelerating, or decelerating.

I finally had time to poke around today and found its actually the passenger side thats making the noise. I'm pretty sure the hub is to blame so I orderd a unit from timken. Now to soak those rusty bolts for a few days although I have a bad feeling I may wind up cutting them off. At 113000 miles should I go ahead and replace the axle u-joints as well?

I got pretty long life out of my axle u-joints but you may wish to change them since they're getting up there in years. Spicer 5-760X. The hub bolts take a 13 mm 12 point socket. You'll probably need to knock the hub bearing out with a sledge hammer. I suggest running a wire wheel or brush through the knuckle and put anti-seize all over the place. If you ever have to take it apart again such as when you do do ball joints it will make life easier.

Although the sound and symptoms were not quite indicative of a bad hub assembly, it did turn out to be a bad one on the passenger side. After reading horror stories about frozen bolts/hub etc. I was pleasantly surprised to get the job done in about 2 hours. Considering how rusty everything was, this was pretty fast IMO. I did heat the knuckle and hub with mapp gas and then used an impact wrench. The bolts spun right out. The axle nut also came right off. I hope this helps anyone with similar issues.