today when turning left (twice) when in 4wd I had a clicking/clanking noise that has the same sound as a bad CV joint and kind of like a old manual tranny that grinds into gear, only does it when turning left and does not do it when in 2wd.
Once I got home I jacked it up and checked to make sure the auto and manual hubs working as intended, all good.
I looked for any play in the u-joints and see nothing jumping out, they do appear to be original, no signs of any excess grease leaking out, no pins laying around an no visible metal shavings, if not for the noise and I was just inspecting I wouldn't look twice as they appear fine.
Not sure if this may or may not have anything to do with this new sound, I also have been having a minor clunk or thud coming from the same corner, front left, this sound appears to be more of a bad / loose shock sound, shocks are tight and new.
I have looked at the body mounts and originally they all looked good but I now see that one, again in the same front left corner, that appears to be nearing the end of it's life, very odd as the other 5 appear to be kind of new looking. All bolts are tight and if I jack up the body in this corner I see nothing that would make me think this is the problem, nor do I think this has anything to do with the 4wd noise.
I'm feeling it's probably ball joints, looking for some other opinions, thanks in advance.

 

With the front end on jack stands turn the steering wheel to the far right as you can and have some one hold it. Go to the right wheel with both hubs locked and spin the wheel, watch the u-joint, you might see it jerk maybe a little or a lot. Turn the steering wheel to the far left and do the same again. Then go to the left wheel and do the same thing. This will help you see if the u-joint is going bad! Sometime as you sling the wheel you and feel a binding, this will be a u-joint wearing out. Also listen near the hub you might hear grinding inside, you may have hub problems.
good luck
Smokeploe

 

Triple check the u-joints, the binding (mentioned above) may be hard to notice, but smokeploe gives a good method.

The proper way to check a ball joint is to jack your truck up with the wheel about an inch off the ground. Grab the wheel at 12 & 6, shake back and forth. Grab the wheel at 9 & 3, shake back and forth. Then, stick a pry bar under the tire and lift up and down, as per the video below. This also inspects your tie rod ends and partially inspects your wheel hub bearing. You should do this anyway, but I suspect you will find that the u-joints are binding.

 

I always just reach into the inner C and grab the shaft yokes with one hand, stub yokes with the other and try to twist in opposite directions. Or lock the hub, hold inner yoke with one and rock wheel with the other. ANY play in the joint itself is too much. Be sure you're not detecting slop elsewhere.

You could also try to drive in a way that creates the noise, then quickly get under truck and feel each u-joint. If one is noticeably warmer, it's almost surely dry and binding.

 

It's definitely your hubs or u-joints. The good news is, you've got to pull the hubs to pull the u-joint, so you pretty much have to do the same job regardless. It is more likely to be your u-joints, as they are more exposed to the elements. The bad news is it's a messy job, and if you don't have a large enough press or vice, you're going to want to line up a shop to press the old joints out and put the new ones in. It's a good idea to also get new bearing seals. You MIGHT be able to get them out without damaging them, but it's better to have them on hand in case you don't. Every dealer near me was always out of them.

Something I've always done to prolong the life of my u-joints on the front end is, a few times in summer, find a bunch of dirt roads, put it in 4WD, and drive around for 5 minutes or so. Take it back out and head home. This allows you to move the grease around in those joints without much risk of breaking anything by turning on pavement. It doesn't always help, as a seal could tear or something that will spell doom for the joint anyway, but generally I've found it does.

 

Everyone has their own method to do u-joints. I strongly suggest avoiding a shop press. You could easily bend the yokes. I have done 30 u-joints in my lifetime with a hammer or ball joint c-clamp press, and never bent a yoke. I changed my rear shaft joints and bent two yokes. The tiger tool is $100 and well worth it. I used to laugh at people who bought them, but your risk of bending the yoke is minimized. $100 is the price of a good ball joint press and half the cost of a cheap shop press.

 

I've never bent a yoke myself, but you do raise a valid point - if you're putting too much pressure on them and you don't have the yoke supported properly then yes, it'll bend them. I always made sure the yoke was supported, but if the manual press (never used a hydraulic) started to feel 'loaded up' and nothing was moving, it was time to back off and look things over.

Then I bought my first F250 and the yokes wouldn't fit in my press anymore, so I started taking axle shafts and driveshafts in to a local shop to have u-joints swapped out. I think the most I ever paid was $50 to replace all of them on my dually's rear shaft.

 

I blew the opposing yoke on a 44 with a Tiger Tool, so nothing is perfect. Rust is stubborn

 

Ouch. That's a hit to the pocketbook.

 

Yikes...

I found that the yokes tend to bend inward, which is why I like the Tiger tool. If the yokes bend outwards, you can always use a thicker snap ring.

Regardless of the tool, I always like to use a standard length wrench to put force on the press. If I need any more torque, something is wrong and I need a new method.

My front driveshaft had a u joint that was extremely seized. I ended up cutting the cross out so I had just the cap, then I used a pitman arm puller to just blast through the center of the cap. At that point I was able to air hammer the rest of the cap and save the yoke.

Pressure, heat, impact. Use all three before you use too much of one. If you need to use an impact wrench or breaker bar on your press, give a few whacks with a hammer. If that doesn't work, heat up the yoke. I've never had a job where I couldn't put pressure on something with a press or puller then break it free with heat and a small sledge (I'm on the edge of the rust belt, I understand some areas require more extreme methods).

This isn't a u joint but this guy shows pressure, heat, and impact in action:

 

Thanks for all the input, sorry for the rain delay.
Ok everything checks out and i have been unable to duplicate the sound since being home on asphalt roads.
One think that has me thinking there is either a vac issue or a bad hub is when I manually put it into 4wd the drives side, same side the original noise came from, was a little stiffer than the other side. I did this when poking around at everything prior to trying to duplicate the noise. I dont have the time this week, but I'm feeling I have a bad hub, thinking there was some crud or most likely some metal or whatever the gears are made from that didnt allow it to fully engage when I first heard the noise.
The hub appears to be fairly straight forward and quick to pull, once I have the time and weather I'm going to see how it looks.
I looked at the warn hubs but I really dont want to have to get out to put in in 4wd every time I go up and down the mountain, I have used 4wd more in the last year than I have in my entire life, we have been going to the cabin at least 3 times a month since we bought it last year, I dont see that changing anytime soon.
Typically I do all my own wrenching, but old and tired I may just have to break down and let someone else do the job.
There is no option to just do my typical thing and sell it and buy another, trucks are so damn hard to come by right now it's definitely a sellers market, even the repo inventory has dried up or they are going for retail plus.

 

If you're using it a lot, then leaving the Warns locked in full time will only hurt you in mileage...maybe half a mile per gallon? Even on dry roads, so long as your transfer case is not in 4WD, you'll be okay.

That said, I got to thinking, and there is, IIRC, a small plastic bushing inside these that can also wear out and potentially stop the lockout from fully engaging, which could lead to a 'clicking' type noise. Everyone claims they're not serviceable anymore though.

Regardless, it sounds like, since you can't replicate it, it's something that needs more digging into.

 

Good info.
I am a little confused, when I manually locked them with the wheels off the ground the axel would turn, I assumed, yeah I know, and never really thought about actually engaging the drive itself, just thought it was in 4wd. I'm going to do it the right way now and manually lock and actually turn the button on and see if I can duplicate the noise.
Going to be heading up to the same location it originally made the noise in the morning, I'm feeling this may be a better test that the asphalt road test.