Diff or Wheel bearing noise?

[lasturbo]

Rear Wheel Bearing Noise
Rear wheel bearing noise continues to be heard while coasting at low speed with transmission in neutral.
Noise may diminish by gentle braking. Jack up the rear wheels, spin them by hand and listen for noise at
the hubs. Replace any faulty wheel bearings.

Has any member "Replaced Rear Bearings" yet because there is nothing in the workshop manual how to do it (unless I am blind) and what special tools and/or presses are needed to get the bearings off the axle shafts.

[etlsport]

just looked through our vehicle repair program. there is a time listed to replace the rear wheel bearings (1.7 hours per side) but no instructions or even diagrams for it

[SilverBullet75]

Great question...
Anyone ever replaced the rear wheel bearings?

Also, has anyone ever had a read diff actully fail?
What does it do? Grenade?

thanks,
---JIM---

[Lucian08]

I was about to post about a vibration noise, and this post came up as a suggestion to review. After reading through it, I seem to have similar issues to at least one or 2 others. My situation being that I have no noise until I hot about 40mph; after that there seems to be a vibration noise under acceleration or maintaining speed. No sound when letting off on the gas, and no sound under 40mph no matter driving style. One extra nugget of info is that I had this noise (or what I remember being this noise) both on acceleration AND deceleration; I hadn't driven in a couple months and just installed a diff drop (been sitting in the garage for far too long) and now the sound only seems to be as described above. I thought it may have been the CVs (and I had wanted a diff drop), but now I'm sure it must be something else. Front Diff? Rear Diff? I'll have a passenger drive with me this week to see if its coming more from front or rear, but the fact that it did change somewhat after the diff drop leads me to believe it is front related. Thoughts? The last post ended with the question of anyone actually having to replace a wheel bearing or diff; has anyone? Noise come or go after such a repair or upgrade?

[djvx]

I was about to post about a vibration noise, and this post came up as a suggestion to review. After reading through it, I seem to have similar issues to at least one or 2 others. My situation being that I have no noise until I hot about 40mph; after that there seems to be a vibration noise under acceleration or maintaining speed. No sound when letting off on the gas, and no sound under 40mph no matter driving style. One extra nugget of info is that I had this noise (or what I remember being this noise) both on acceleration AND deceleration; I hadn't driven in a couple months and just installed a diff drop (been sitting in the garage for far too long) and now the sound only seems to be as described above. I thought it may have been the CVs (and I had wanted a diff drop), but now I'm sure it must be something else. Front Diff? Rear Diff? I'll have a passenger drive with me this week to see if its coming more from front or rear, but the fact that it did change somewhat after the diff drop leads me to believe it is front related. Thoughts? The last post ended with the question of anyone actually having to replace a wheel bearing or diff; has anyone? Noise come or go after such a repair or upgrade?

Have you replaced diff fluids & transfer case and trans fluid lately? Greased the driveshaft? Sounds to me like normal noisy vx drivetrain, but my best reduction of the vibration was greasing the driveshaft, definitely helped. Tons of threads on vibration but Id do the fluids if you haven't lately. The vibration could be a driveshaft balance issue. Maybe you dented it?

[Lucian08]

I drained and replaced the front diff fluid when I did the drop last weekend. I'm gonna grease the driveshafts (is that as easy as it sounds?) and change the oil in the rear diff hopefully this weekend. The noise has slowly increased over time, so I doubt the shaft is dented but I'll give it a once over when I'm under there. If all else fails I'll just get a louder exhaust and hope it doesn't explode before my next upgrades.

[MSHardeman]

It really is that easy to grease the drive shaft (if you have a grease gun). There are three zerk fittings on the rear drive shaft. One at the front u-joint, one in the middle of the drive shaft at the slip joint, and one at the rear u-joint at the rear end. Plug your grease gun onto the zerk fitting and pump grease in until it starts oozing out of the u-joints/ slip joint. Actually, keep pumping grease in until the grease that is oozing out of the joints is clean. Wipe off the excess grease or it will get flung around under the VX and you're good to go.

One word of advise; wear eye protection and don't lay right under the joint that you are greasing. The eye protection is to keep all of the grit that will fall off of underside of the VX out of your eyes and you don't want to lay under the joint because the grease will fall off as it keeps oozing out and that stuff is really tough to wipe off of your skin (or hair).

[Mile High VX]

One word of advise; wear eye protection and don't lay right under the joint that you are greasing. The eye protection is to keep all of the grit that will fall off of underside of the VX out of your eyes and you don't want to lay under the joint because the grease will fall off as it keeps oozing out and that stuff is really tough to wipe off of your skin (or hair).

How knowest thou this?

[MSHardeman]

Let's just say that I didn't need any hair gel for a couple of days. Had that 50's greaser look going for a while AND my eyes were all red from the dirt. It was a GOOD look.

[djvx]

I drained and replaced the front diff fluid when I did the drop last weekend. I'm gonna grease the driveshafts (is that as easy as it sounds?) and change the oil in the rear diff hopefully this weekend. The noise has slowly increased over time, so I doubt the shaft is dented but I'll give it a once over when I'm under there. If all else fails I'll just get a louder exhaust and hope it doesn't explode before my next upgrades.

Any update on that vibration?

[Lucian08]

Has it really been a month? Gawd I suck. Anywho, I had checked under the VX a few weeks ago and didn't see any fittings, but after checking the VX manual it agreed that they should be there (never should've doubted!). I FINALLY looked again last night and there they were; covered in crud but def there. Greased em until grease started to come out as suggested. Unfortunately the one on the rear joint has been dented so I'm gonna look for a replacement, but took it for a test drive and the noise is 95% gone! It was too easy! I'm gonna grease everything!

On an unrelated noise issue coming from the fan, I removed the four screws holding the blower under the dash on the passenger side and instead of finding a busted fan there were just a few leaves in there. Leaves gone, noise gone. Other than the whine of my 33" Nitto Grapplers on the pavement my Erebos is as silent as before. I took my sweet time and you guys were helpful as always. Now its time to get my skid plates on and head up to Gilbert, MN in a few weeks. Thanks again!

[HuzpazA]

FWIW, my recently acquired VX had a similar 'whine' when decelerating. A noticeable almost rubbing like noise when you let off the gas at low speeds, and seemed to be worse at higher speeds above 40 MPH.

I've dug around the site some and read a few posts on the topic. One of the first questions asked of me was if the tires were mismatched. My front and rear tires were not only different brands and tread patterns when I picked it up, but the wear pattern was very uneven due to severe misalignment and lack of rotation.

It was suggested to me that tires on the VX are critical to the TOD system functioning properly. If tires are severely mismatched or unevenly worn (as mine were) it can cause bad sensor readings and lead to trouble in the transfer case.

In many threads I read, users/owners tended to notice this noise more, or for the first time immediately after lifting their VXs and putting on larger tires/wheels.

I'm not sure exactly what the issue is, if there are multiple problems described here with similar symptoms but different root causes, or what the ultimate solution is, but in all cases I've read about tire condition, size, and lifts seemed to play a role in triggering or exacerbating similarly described problems.

I changed my tires out for a near stock 255/60/18 on an aftermarket 18x9 rim, and most if not all of the sound I heard when decelerating is gone. I'm not entirely convinced that there isn't a 'problem' still lurking under there somewhere, but the new wheels and tires appear to have minimized the symptom in my case.

In any event, I'm very interested to see what others have to add on this topic. When I first encountered the rubbing/whining sound there was a distinct vibration I could feel as well. I thought it could be anything from a bad CV or drive shaft to a problem in the transfer case. I guess I'm still a little skeptical that new tires and wheels have truly eliminated the problem, and wonder if the larger tires, wheels, and lifts or worn tires put more stress on an already weak component or if bad sensor readings and TOD settings are really the culprit here.

i just got mine yesterday and noticed the same type sound and also noticed it has 4 different tires all together on it. the sidewalls read:
front right) 265 70r16 111t
front left ) 265 70r16 112s- this tire is noticeably larger than the other 3
rear right ) 255 70r16 111s
rear left ) 265 70r16 109s

wtf, really? bought from a dealer this way, i can only hope it hasent been driven like this for a long time, very disappointing.
im going to check with some used tire shops around and see if i can trade these in towards the purchase of a full set of proper 245 70 16, im unsure about which T or S are needed tho