Sounds like a half a handful of BB's in my hubcaps. It's a light clinking and clattering sound. But it's coming from inside my transfer case. It starts up at about 3-4 mph and gets faster as the mph picks up in both forward and reverse, in 2wd and 4wd.
There is no other symptom besides the sound. No clunking, clanking, or roaring, like something you'd expect with a serious problem. And the vehicle drives and shifts normally just like it always has. If I hadn't noticed the slight noise (in a fast food drive thru lane with the windows down), I would never have known there was a problem. The sound started about 300 miles into a 600 mile Interstate trip, as far as I know, and didn't get any worse or even sound any different after the 600 mile return trip a few days later.
I took it to a Jeep Dealer shop at my destination but they apparently couldn't diagnose the sound either. Just offered to tear it down for $270 and THEN give me an estimate to fix it and put it back together once they find the problem. But that would take days to order parts etc. and I needed to get back home. So I drove it 600 miles back at
65-70mph with no problems whatsoever.It's a 1999 Cherokee XJ with 167,000 mostly ON road miles (very little
4wd use). It's a one owner (me), always well maintained, and fresh out of the shop for some pre-trip work that was totally unrelated to the drive train (a/c work, water pump, etc like that).Now that I'm home, I want to fix it. But I'd like to use a different shop than the one I've been using. Seems like every time I take it there, I end up with a problem that I didn't have before I took it in and I'm beginning to wonder if that may not be a coincidence.
Anybody have any ideas??
Thanks in advance,
Rick HeBeJeepN '99 XJ Sport, Selec-Trac, Trac-Lok