93 grand cherokee popping noise from right front

I have a 93 Cherokee that when the front drive shaft is in and I step on the gas I get a popping noise from the right front side of the axle. I'm thinking it is a broken shaft but haven't torn it apart yet. Any ideas?

You have cv axles correct? might be a bad cv joint.

Ya I do, but it does it even going straight and only with the front driveshaft in. I popped the cover of the diff cover and saw what looks like teeth marks on the carrier

Well it's either you drive shaft u joints or the transfer. Your front axle is always engaged, spins the drive shaft, spins the transfer case. That's because there no more "locking hubs". All that spins on its own going down the street. When you put it in 4WD then you send power to it. So with or without you drive shaft on place the axle would make the same noise. It goes away because it's not your axle. I would look at your u joints or t-case.

What does your pinion feel like? Could be Pinion bearings. Could be carrier bearings. Could be spider gears, what do they look like. A bad CV would do it all time usually. The fact that it only does it when the front shaft is in leads me to believe it is something else.

lonestar rubi wrote:

Well it's either you drive shaft u joints or the transfer. Your front axle is always engaged, spins the drive shaft, spins the transfer case. That's because there no more "locking hubs". All that spins on its own going down the street. When you put it in 4WD then you send power to it. So with or without you drive shaft on place the axle would make the same noise. It goes away because it's not your axle. I would look at your u joints or t-case.

Not necessarily. Everything spins, yes but when you add a Dshaft on it, there is a weighted load now on the Pinion. The extra resistance from that and the tcase can show loaded problems on the front axle.

Like I posted earlier, there are gouge marks in the carrier where the shaft goes for the spider gears which look like they came from the pinion, which has a good amount of play in it while twisting it left and right before it turns the ring gear. Differentials are still a dark art to me. My transfer is the np249 and it does have a lil wobble in the front output shaft, and I plan on swapping in one that has 2wd instead of all time 4wd.

Also, what Dshaft do you have? the cv? Best swap ever on these is set of U joint axles and U joint Dshaft. Also swap in a 242 tcase. You should be able to do the whole swap for about 4200 in parts. On the pinion, you not really looking for twist play, but wobble play.

The twist is normal as long as it is with in spec and the teeth hit right, but if it wobbles, then you got problems. the tcase you have is the 249. It is grand son to the Qudratrac (Quadrajunk) tcase out of the full size waggy

Sorry that's a nv247j, I want to put a nv242j in it

I wouldn't know what within specs means, I saw an article in jp about doing the 242 swap in a wj with the v8 and all they had to do was change the input shaft. My front drive shaft is the double carinin style

What year is your GC? Do you have WJ running gear? If you have 1993 ZJ GC, and you have select trac you should have an np249. This uses a viscous coupler to transfer power to both axles. This can cause some knocking but still unlikely source, possible, but unlikely. The Quadra-Drive NV247 was not used till 1999. Also if you have the Vari-Lok limited slip your suppose to use friction modifier additive in the gear oil. If you do not this can cause some binding.

It's a 93, its not wj running gear. How do I tell if I have the limited slip

My wifes car had a bad CV axle about a year ago. It made a grinding popping sound at turns and at different speeds. Sometimes when accelerating or sometimes when letting off the gas. It wasn't constant until it got REAAAAALLLLLLY bad after about 8 months. Then it made the grinding sound ALL the time.

it is a 93 with stock gear and you have 247? If you don't have WJ gear or the 247 you will not have the Vari-Lok limited slip