grinding/rubbing noise possible wheel bearing or TC
 

My 04 x type 3.0 recently started making a rubbing noise similar to what a bad wheel bearing sounds like. About a month ago I had relaxed the front passenger side bearing with a generic one that was included with the purchase of the car, and the ride was quiet afterwards (no abs or tcs, but whatever). Now I'm having a similar noise going on, though not as bad, accompanied by an intermittent mild vibration at higher speeds, 40_60 mph. The noise doesn't go away while cornering like a wheel bearing would.

The steering wheel vibration was there before I changed the last bearing, but it didn't happen as often and would go away if I bright it up to about 70 or so.

I've been reading around on this forum and some others trying to find someone with a similar type of situation to little avail. I've gone through the extensive service records that came with the car and have noted that nine of the bearing have been replaced, and the transfer case has not been serviced. The clutch has been replaced and the trans fluid, but no mention of the TC.

I'm hoping it's just another bad bearing and not the Tc grinding itself down to nothing. Would a dry case produce the same sound as a bad bearing? What about the vibration? It seems to increase during breaking, but that didn't happen while the other bearing was damaged.

There's a lot of good info in here, I'm glad to have found this resource.

Yea your transfer case is probably dry as a bone. I'm not guaranteeing that is what's making the sound but definitely put some royal purple gear oil in there asap. It's not that hard to do if you have a jack. They say the transfer cases don't need servicing but they run out of oil over time. By now yours is probably on it's last drops. Put some in as soon as possible and see if that takes care of the noise... Tilt the car one way to drain it out and then tilt the other side when you fill it up.

Close to 150,000 on it, we can be damn near certain that it's dry. I guess it's shopping time to acquire a jack and some stands to refill asap. Read a bunch of the threads about replacing and adding piping components to make the fill easier, just haven't gotten around to it. Labor intensive 6 days a week job, married with three kids and all leaves little time to tinker.

Could it maybe be the tires on your car? Maybe swap them around and see if the noise changes? Could be a belt separating inside. That said, still not a bad idea to change out your transfer case fluid.

Tires are in pretty good shape, over half tread left anyway. When I put it up to change the fluid I'll have to check for play in the bearings I guess.

Bumping an old thread...did you ever find the fix? My 02 is doing the same thing.

Just checked the TC and it was damn near dry. Filled it with RP but no change in sound. Wondering if it a front wheel bearing now.

What i would suggest (and how i found out my TC bearings were bad) take the car to a garage where they can get the car up on ramps.
have someone inside the car put it in drive and get under and see if you can narrow down where the noise is coming from.
You will throw a check engine light as the wheels will rotate at different rates but any good garage will be able to reset it.
also would not be a bad idea to inject some grease in the prop shaft carrier bearing.

Let us know how it goes.

It turned out to be the wheel bearing on the other side for me. I'm fortunate that my case still had a decent amount of fluid in it when I changed the fluid, although it was pretty dark and smelled like a dead animal on a hot day.