4wd grinding... whats your thought?
 

Ive got a 2001 ram 2500 with 170,000 on the clock. i just bought it about 15-20,000 miles ago. when i put it into 4 wheel drive it grinds like crazy vibrating the fillings out of my teeth. last winter it was a light at first mild toward end of winter vibration and i never used it during the summer but pulled the front drive shaft and replaced all the u-joints. now this winter its even worse. and its only on acceleration and deceleration once i get to a steady speed or push in on the clutch it stops.. dad and i were talking and i hate to replace a diff and have it be a transfer case or vice versa.. only joints i havent replaced are the u-joints on the axle.. what would you do?

just about 3k miles ago i replaced the clutch and transmission and replaced the gear oil in the transfer case but who knows how many miles were on it.. it looked a little toasted.

and about 10k miles ago i pulled the front diff cover to changed the fluid in there and the ring gear looked fine. dont have a back-lash dial and no idea what it should indicate anyway so that idea was out of the window.


i was thinking, try to only use 4wheel drive to get moving then pop it back to 2 wheel once i got rolling on the snow to save myself a headache until spring when it warms up and can pull the transfer case apart to see if maybe a gear or something is screwed up inside

again, what would you do??

I would do the u joints in the fron axles then go from ther..........go solid joints not hollow

sounds like a tranfer case....grab the front yoke (driveshaft) see if you have up and down play OR back and forth movement, if so sounds like an internal problem withinn the tcase.

yoke shaft bearings on my t case are shot and it shakes.

how hard are these t-cases to crack? is it a pretty easy design or am i going to have gears falling all over when i pull it apart? i will of course take a lot of pictures so i have a reference when i put it back together. i believe its a NP241 or 341 cant really remember its been 2 years since i looked at the model plate. thanks guys! your a huge help!

Updates??