anyone with noisy rear ends have them last for quite a while after they developed a slight hum/whine?
Background:
I have this Geo Tracker that I got for free last fall and I got it with 133k on it. motor, tight and smooth. trans, great, shifts like butter. transfer case, works fine. front diff, works fine as well.
Rear end. Fluid was never changed and I noticed a slight gear noise at ~30mph when puttering through town and a little louder whine/drone at 60mph. so i popped the drain plug out and it was dark and somewhat low on fluid so I drained it and refilled with new 80w90. magnet was pretty clean, little sludge. put the plugs back in. this was yesterday. it still makes some noise so i was wondering what the experience on here was. there doesnt seem to be ridiculous play in the setup either.
the little truck is pretty gutless so im not too worried about it and i still thrash on it like normal… no clutch dumps but i rev it out in every gear to get it moving and i goof around in the snow and mud some.
the only experience with noisy rear ends are with a fullsize dodge that was neglected all its life and was towing and the rear end was whining and nothing was done and it croaked and destroyed itself. another was with a plymouth sundance converted to RWD using a well worn, noisy ford 9" (narrowed to fit) that lifts the wheels and runs 11’s and puts 425 to the wheels and it has held up fine with new fluid. it was driven from kansas city to pittsburgh and beat hard and tuned low 12’s all day long in 100 deg heat and drove the whole way back without a hitch. :shrug:
thanks for reading the novel lol. just wanted to see if any had experiences with this.
I have one in my 87 donor supra that is awful…i mean it sounds like zero lubrication and it screams for help at 1/100th throttle and supposedly the last own daily drove it for over a year.
If its just gear wine, I wouldnt be too worried. If it’s pinion bearing noise, well that’s another story. Will the noise “change” when going from load to coast? If it does, it is most likley a pinion bearing. If it slowly changes with road speed, I’ll bet it’s side bearing or ring gear noise.
it does slowly change as the speed increases. it hits some kind of resonance at 30mph and 60mph.
it does go away completely when i let off the gas. i was beating it today and it didnt get any worse or better nor break. lol. if it gets really bad, ill just go to the jy and get another rear end. no biggie.
id like to get the 4.30fd rear and front diff from the automatic so i get less revs on the highway.
buddy of mine has a 96 tracker, makes a whine noise but only when its in 5th gear. He beats the hell out of it, has 130k+ miles on it. Not sure if yours does the same thing or not. Hes been driving it like this since he got it 2 years go.
yeah mine whines most in 5th but if you rev out 4th pretty far you can get it to whine as well.
i dont know anyone who has a tracker or a samurai that doesnt say “man i beat the living piss out of that vehicle and it just takes it”
as far as i know, mine still has the original clutch at it at 147k. i know both the previous owners and they said that they never replaced it and it went to the 2nd owner at 63k and he never replaced it. it still barks second and it barked 3rd this spring once on a hard shift.
so im guessing the rear end will be fine for a while.
PUT SAWDUST IN THE REAR!!! lol please dont. Anyhow the 9in in my camaro whines like a little bitch put takes 200shot 5k clutch dumps on 28in slicks so i vote roll with it as well.
my stocker whined too… then exploded. i wouldn’t worry too much because there is no risk of blowing it up with 95hp. it was free, drive it until its dead.
