Ok, so the truck has been making some intermitten weird noises for a while. The noise is definately coming from the front end, and some of them come from the passenger front wheel area. Some of the noises include a scraping/grinding sound (like something is dragging or grinding), and a clicking vibration when you come to a complete stop. The clicking vibration is more of a thud sound, kinda like the hub is locking/unlocking itself. I do know that today when it was making the noise, I thought hubs, so I put it into 4WD and the noise stopped. The noise only happens sometimes, and I don't know the cause of what prompts it to occur. Anyone have any ideas? Im thinking its the auto hubs but no idea. Also should it be the auto hubs, how much stouter are a set of warn manual hubs compared to a set of new toyota auto hubs?

 

I believe that any manual hub is better than an auto hub, but stock asins are the best. Clicking noise is usually wheel bearing in my experience, but there are alot of little parts in the auto hubs to break.

 

Ya this is an odd problem, i don't think its a wheel bearing, it should be a constant noise if it was, this is intermitten. Anyone else have any clues? Has anyone had an auto hub fail, and if so, how, what did it do, etc...

 

bump for help

 

I believe that my old one "failed" because the axle shafts would still turn in 2wd. I thought it was paracidic drag (sp) utill I tried turning them by hand and they were definatly lock in.

It is not your brakes right? The grinding is constant or does it only happen when your brakes are applied.

Jack up the front of the truck so your tires are off the ground. Then grab the tire on the top and bottom and try and rock it (pull bottom towards you while you push the top away, visa-versa). DO this rapidly and if you feel any movement then your wheel bearing are probably shot or just loose.

If you grab the sides of the tire (Front and back) this will check your steering for freeplay and notso much the wheel bearings.

 

Its not the brakes, the grinding, when it does occur is constant, regardless of if the brakes are pressed. The thing that doesn't make any sense to me is that when you come to almost a complete stop it makes a thud sound, kinda like a rough engage/disengage sound. Its -10 out right now, or else I'd be into it figuring it out.

 

Oh, and SoCal thanks for the help thus far!!!!

 

do you have true auto hubs or ADD?

 

True auto hubs.

 

Just so everyone has some info:

The hubs were the root of all the aforementioned evil. I don't know exactly what went wrong with them, but they were the cause. I replaced them with a set of warn premium manual hubs (PN 26871) and used the warn conversion kit (PN ???). Ran me about 200 bucks and was well worth it. The new hubs have solved all the weird problems, and have improved my gas mileage significantly. Installation was a piece of cake, and no more worry about all the things inside an auto hub that make it work. Well recommended change!! Thanks to all!

 

You must have had the last working set of auto hubs in existence! They came on the SR5 Xtracabs starting in 85 (but not the 4Runners which was odd) and all the sets my family and friends had blew within 2 or 3 years. We were all offroaders though. The Warns will last forever, period. Good move.

 

Phil - lol... its quite possible, now that you've mentioned it, I haven't seen another truck with them... I guess it just goes to show that I got a good truck that was well taken care of (221,000+ miles). Amazing that they lasted that long. So far I'm happy with the warn's, but I've only had them for a day. Unfortunately, I won't get to drive my truck anytime soon, it's off to my buddies garage for a week or more... they're fabbing me up a rear bumper, rock sliders, and a front winch mount.

 

Those 3 things are on my list too, winch mount, sliders, rear bumper and modify the exhaust & spare mount under the bed to get that 35 under there and out of the bed...

 

Have you figured out who's doing your work for ya? I'm having the bumper done so I can carry a spare, right now I don't have room for one.... not the smartest thing..

 

I'll do my own stuff.