Let us know what you find.

 

Well, i got a real expert this time to check it out. My girlfriend's parents came over this weekend. Her father is the head engineer for a very large crane company and has worked on every vehicle there is is including the company GMC sierras.

As soon as he heard the noise, he said it was the familair grinding of bearings in the front differential. Apparently it may take a while before the bearing completely deteriorates but will regardless be a bad job to get through. He was surprised that the noise would get worse or stop when turning. As I believed, the weight should have no effect on the differential, especially when turning freely. Because of this he says his diagnosis may be wrong but not likely. He was of the same opinion of the mechanic, put thicker oil in the differential, drive it till it gets bad enough till I know for sure where the prob is coming from. Dammit.

 

FINALLLYYYY!!! I know what the problem is. Despite the fact that I can sense the grinding in my front steering and sounds like the problem is coming from the front end, it's my rear wheel driver's side bearing assembly. I was driving to work and my truck suddenly started losing it's alignment on the highway. Getting to the parking lot, the rear breaks were making a noise when i'd apply them.

When I got out i tugged on the tire and despite the fact that it wasn't an issue before, the tire had some decent give in it and was making really loud creaky noises when moved. Seems like the rear bearings only now just started deteriorating enough to feel the tire give out.

Rear hub assemblies seem much much less common to buy for some reason. I can't find any online and none of the stores around have them readily available, nor do they sell them for under 400$. The dealership charges 700$.

If you look up front hub assembly on ebay, you get over 1000 hits, if you look up rear hub, you get two hits, and neither of them fit my truck.

Any reason why rear hubs are so rare compared to front hubs?

 

I have a feeling that its due to the whole solid rear axle thing. Might have better luck at a pick and pull. That way you can go pull exactly what you need, if its there.

Thats why the sound went away when turning left, you were unloading the drivers side rear wheel - hence no sound.

Glad you found it, now begins the hunt for parts.

 

A quick search got me to this...

http://cpwstore.carpartswholesale.co...rsal:0%29&sv=0

Not sure if its the right year, or the best price out there, but they are available. Personal experience, stay away from Rock Auto, they suck.

 

Mostly front assemblies, the Rears will fit, but most likely won't ship to canada, and with a 350$ pricetag, not good.

I'll spend more than my 15 minutes of searching looking around online. Just strange that rear assemblies are so much more pricey. especially when they don't even have sensors like the front.

 

Actually, ignore that, the rears won't fit, for Quadrasteer only.

 

Ok, I'll consider this topic closed. turns out the reason why rear hub assemblies are so fricken rare is because people don't tend to replace them. You can simply replace the bearings like in older vehicles for cheap. Now I need to know how to replace this as it seems completely different than replacing a hub.

 

I was wondering why you kept calling them hubs if you don't have quadrasteer.

 

Well, I'll re-open this case again. I'm suspecting once again the front differential...After lifting the truck, a closer inspection shows that both rear tires have movement but is very minimal. The bearings are only giving approx half a millimeter (not even a 1/12th of an inch of movement) Considering both wheels have the same amount of movement, I'll consider more before replacing any more bearings.

The rear differential fluid was very clear after 6 months of use... But the front was a different story. I know that the front differential does disintegrate more than the rear, but I found quite a large amount of silver particles only after a 6 month change. Look at picture. There were no chunks, but the magnet and gel on the plug was packed with silver. Is this normal after 6 months, 11 000 miles of use and maybe about 300miles of 4wheel driving?