78 F-250 4x4 SuperCab. I know the 205s are known to be a little noisy with gear sounds but on my way to work in the snow this morning it seemed a little excessive with some vibration. Hubs locked and in 2wd it wasnt too bad but 4H engaged made me a little uncomfortable to take it to highway speeds. Anyone ever have one of these blow up and what were the warning signs? Or is this average noise? Or maybe I need to look at my front drive shaft U-joints?

 

A good inspection of everything is probably in order. I run nothing but 205's and they are dead quiet. No noises that are said to be common. I do get a small amount of gear noise, but this is quite minimal.
If you can hear the case in the manner in which you mentioned, I might suspect a thrust washer behind the front output bearing. This will permit the gears to walk a bit and might be the cause of the noise.
It is possible to live with it and the case may survive almost forever, or it could be a sign of failure. This is difficult to diagnose from this end of the keyboard.

 

Ya I will give it the once over when I get home. I too am suspecting gears not meshing correctly or a bearing aint right. I will just go easy on it for now. Its just got to hold up for the next couple days till I get my 99 into the alignment shop then I can add this to the list of things to fix. Probably too much horsepower from the 429 wore it out. I will probably swap out the T-case with one of my spares when Santa brings me my lift kit in a month or so.

 

After looking closer at the situation Im going to have to go with worn out U-joints (CV joint) at the front T-case output. Hope they hold up for the next couple days. On the upside Ive been pretty much able to handle everything in 2wd and only use the 4x4 for the real deep (and slow moving) stuff.

 

I took the U-joints apart last night and they werent as bad as I thought. What it looks like is the CV ball and socket thing is toast. I will be taking the shaft in to the repair shop.

 

I had one of those go on the rear driveshaft of my Bronco, and the local parts places wanted two or three times as much as I found it online for. If you can wait a day or two, try rockauto.com.

 

Yeah I took the shaft to a local truck place and they wanted 350 to rebuild or build from scratch. Same price. Then I checked broncograveyard and they wanted 225 +shipping. Then I called another local truck place and they want 255 brand new. The first place obviously didnt want my business. Ive been getting around ok for the last couple days in 2wd so I will probably borrow a shaft from one of my parts trucks this weekend till I get my lift and need a longer shaft. Then I will buy a brand new one.