Noise from Front Diff when Spinning Front Tire

Trying to troubleshoot a rotational wuh, wuh, wuh noise when on smooth roads today. Was thinking it might be either the tire (Wildpeak AT3W w 24k miles on them) or a bearing.

Starting w jacking up the front end. No play up/down or side to side but I do have a pretty quiet rotational dull ticking noise that I hear when rotating the drivers tire. I got the stethoscope out and traced it back to the front diff.

There are no noises when spinning the passenger tire

Does anyone know if this noise is normal when spinning just the front drivers side tire?

 

How many miles? Any lift? The OEM needle bearing is known to cause issues overtime. The driver side is needle bearing and IIRC the passenger side is a ball bearing.

 

Just under 25k miles and I have already replaced the needle bearing with the ECGS bushing.

Have a 2" lift.

The noise is coming from inside the front diff when spinning the drivers side wheel only. Not resistance or rough feeling. Just a dull clicking noise

 

Driver side drive axle is always connected to the diff so you’re spinning the spider gears. Passenger drive axle has the ADD in the tube.

 

Does your noise sound anything like the one in this video:

https://www.4runners.com/threads/wheel-bearing-video.40437/#post-630647

 

I like this answer and didnt think about the ADD being on the passenger side.

 

Yes, it sounds like the videos in that thread. It is very quiet and using a stethoscope puts it in the diff.

I'm guessing this is a normal noise as @whippersnapper02 mentions above. However, I would love someone willing to lift their front end and spin the drivers side tire to see if they hear it as well.

 

This would be an interesting test: raise the entire front end. Find a buddy to spin one tire, while you spin the other. Try to spin them at the same speed. Does the sound go away? If so, maybe it is the sound of the spider gear.

Go one test further… spin one side. If you hear the sound, go to the other side and change the clock position of the wheel 1 or 2 hours. Test other side for noise again. If it still makes noise, keep changing the clock position of the other wheel little by little, rechecking the noisy side. Maybe there are certain gear alignments on the differentialing part of the diff that cause more noise than others.

 

From what I understand, the diff to ADD stub section on the passenger side spins in the opposite direction when the ADD is unlocked.

 

This kinda reminds me of when I was a kid and I’d say “Dad, it hurts when I go like this!” And he’d say “Well then don’t go like that!”

 

Hmmm, I think I must have managed to confuse myself with all my thinking.

Your comment made me realize that turning the other wheel won’t affect anything inside the differential with the ADD in the disconnected state. And since the noise is happening with the diff disconnected, my “test” isn’t going to reveal anything.

 

So my question still stands. I would love to get some "empirical" evidence that when you lift the front end and spin the drivers side wheel (either direction), it's normal to hear that clicking noise.

Anyone willing to test their rig?

My bigger issue still continues. I greased the driveshafts and slip yokes again and switched the front wheels side to side to see if it's a tire issue. The rapid wuh, wuh, wuh noise is still there on the drivers side. Kind of starts above 35 and gets faster as i go faster and then you can hear it all the way too stop. I've done the ECGS bushing already so it's not the needle bearing.

 

@TrueTexas did you ever figure this out?

 

Yeah. Sure did.

Regarding the rotational noise when you spin the drivers front tire in the air, I am 99.99% sure that its completely normal.

Been running it hard it 4 Hi and 4 Low the past few days and it's running perfectly.

 

@TrueTexas, my bad. I was asking about the “wuh wuh wuh” noise. Did you get that sorted?

 

Yes

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Yes. It was 100% the tires. They wore from overinflation. I was running them at about 35-36psi. They were like sawteeth on the outer and inner edges. I did rotate front to back regularly (6-7k) miles.

I got a set of Falken Wildpeak AT4W (stick size SL) installed and the noise is completely gone. Going to be running them at 32psi and will cross rotate from here on out

 

I wonder if it is just Falken tires. I have AT3W at 30k miles and it's the same noise, and I was running them at 32psi. I found various other people complaining on the other forum of the same problem. The advice in general was the inverse ... "run them at a higher PSI" ...

 

what year 5th gen? There is a TSB on the front diff and they will replace it free of charge. I have a 22 and was hearing the same sound and it was the diff.

 

It could have been the tires. However, I was down to .2" to .25" of tread in the centers and like .5" to .6" on the inside and outside edges, which would indicate overinflation. I would think if you had the sawtooth patterning, running them at higher pressure would "mask" the noise because the tires would be contacting more in the center than the edges. Feels more like a bandaid than a fix. If your overall tread is good, maybe swapping them side to side would help even them out. In my case, they would have been too worn at that point.

With my trip to Moab approaching fast, I was better off just getting new tires.

 

2021. It was the tires for me. I did do the egcs bushing before the tires, with no improvement. Once I got new tires, it is quieter than ever before.

To be clear, the diff noise referenced was when you lift the front end on jack stands and rotate the drivers side tire by hand. There is a faint clicking noise.

 

Bandaid = exactly. I swapped sides and inflated them to 36 PSI and it got a bit better, but it is still there. I've got wear left, so I'm just going to suffer for another 10k miles. I have to replace the shocks at some point, so I'll probably just do all that at once.